It's cold and wet and I'm unmotivated.

All my plans to get up at 5am every morning, to write for two solid hours a day, to get to at least 25,000 words by the time I fly out… well, it’s not happening. Between the 13^th July and the 16^th July, I wrote nothing. I thought about writing, if that counts, and I researched (and that does count), but I didn’t write a thing. For the week or two before that, I got very little done as well. In my defense, I had a busy weekend with family… however, if I were a dedicated writer, I’d have fitted in some time somewhere. The fact that I didn’t is what bothers me.

I had a burst of activity on the 17^th, on a sick day from work and the worst weather day this city has seen for decades. I stayed bundled up at home, half asleep, and eventually dragged the story out and started working on it at about 4pm. I managed around 1,400 words in a few hours of erratic bursts… but it got me started into the second chapter, and it’s boosted me up a lot.

Oddly enough (or maybe not odd at all), this chapter is taking a different direction from that which I intended. My protag is making his issues clearer, and what I thought would bother him actually isn’t it at all. I guess when I’m not writing my brain is still chugging over, thinking about things and processing alternatives. Still, I’m dissatisfied with my progress. It feels like I could do a whole lot better than I am doing.

I want to be a writer that writes every day. One who has a consistent pattern: who forces her butt into the chair no matter how tired she feels, or how unmotivated. Problem is, I *want*, but I don’t do. I engage in a cycle of creative bursts interspersed with long breaks where I have little energy (physical or creative). For the past week, even when I’m awake, I’ve felt tired. Exhausted actually, like my muscles are lead and my head is filled with cotton wool. It’s not so bad now as it has been, and my excitement for going to see Emily and staying with her for a month is helping a lot.

You know, I blame the weather. I struggle to maintain motivation during winter. I always have. My energy levels are, in a large way, determined by sunlight. If it’s a dark cloudy day, I sit around and watch tv or I sleep. If it’s a bright sunny day, I get up and do things. If the weather changes during the day, goes from bright sunny to dark and cloudy, my enthusiasm switches off.

In reflection, over the past two weeks I’ve felt mildly depressed. Having experienced depression in the past (and serious bouts of it), I can safely say that I’m not clinically depressed, but my energy and motivation is way down. And, that affects what I achieve and consequently my self-perception.

Maybe I have a mild case of Seasonal Affective Disorder… there I go with my self-diagnosis. But it’s a possibility, I guess. The past two weeks have thrown us into real winter. Bitter cold, darker days… until just now, I hadn’t put it all together, but it does make sense. Even as I sit here typing this it’s 8am on Thursday morning and there’s no sun, just a pale grey cloud blanket. I feel drugged. I could quite happily retreat to the bed and sleep all day.

But, whatever is going on with my moods, in three days time it won’t matter because I’m going to America for a month and it’s summer over there!

See, I’m feeling much better already!