More than one thing

Anyone who’s ever struggled with depression will understand the “just one thing” mindset.

This is how it works: When simply motivating yourself to get out of bed in the morning is a challenge, it is easy to fall into telling yourself that you will be satisfied if you manage to accomplish just one thing in a day. I washed the bathroom floor. I hoovered. I polished the woodwork. Or, for me in recent days, I managed to sit down and write something for at least fifteen minutes, as I swore I would. Having accomplished your one thing, you are then free to completely waste the rest of the day playing computer games or whatever. Which is exactly what I’ve done for the past couple of days.

Enough, already.  There is still plenty to do in the garden by way of prep and maybe I’ll get to some of that this afternoon when the sun is on that side of the trees and it will be warm enough to put the cushions on the swing. In the meantime, my house is a mess.

Yesterday a delivery guy turned up with the case of Stoneleigh I’d ordered. (Yes, I went completely mad last weekend and ordered a case of my favourite wine. Well, what the hell. It’s not as if I’ve been going anywhere spending any money for the past month, so why not?) I didn’t want to open the door. Oh, my god, he’d see the state of the kitchen – the unswept floor, the cluttered counters. Of course I did open the door because I wanted the wine, but you get the idea.

So I’m not even going to try to write for at least fifteen minutes today, because the house needs a Spring Clean.

If you’re really desperate for more to read, click here and you can peruse the opening chapters of all the novels I’ve started in the past decade. You can even vote if you want to do so or leave a comment. (Comments are nice.) Unfortunately, if you want to read more of any of them except the first one, you’ll have a long wait as that’s as far as I’ve got.

Time to haul out the hoover and get more than one thing accomplished today.