Out With the Stress, In With the Stress

Yesterday, my boyfriend used a word that I never thought would come out of his mouth: worrywart. As in, Bree, leave the cat alone, you're being a worrywart. 

But it's true. Just one of the many lovely traits passed to me from my mother.

I am a worrywart. I have terrible visions in my head of every possible thing that could go wrong in any situation. Boyfriend not picking up his phone? Oh, god, what if he slipped in the shower and hit his head? My cat isn't meowing as loud as she possibly can at four in the morning? She must be somewhere in my little studio apartment, dead.

I'm really a thrill to be around, I swear.

Still, I never thought it was possible to actually feel my worries lift on my shoulders, but that's exactly what happened this morning. I woke up at some ungodly hour to give my cat her medicine, and she was already up, moving around, meowing, trying to rub her head against things (the e-collar makes that difficult). Just seeing her act like the idiot that she is made me feel about a thousand tons lighter. She's okay. She'll be okay. Yes, I'm most likely going to go broke getting her medicine and food for the rest of her life, but that's a small price to pay to have her wake me up in the middle of the night because she wants me to put her on the bed. I mean, look at this thing:

For reals. Even with that stupid cone, medicine she refuses to take stuck in her chin fur, and half her fat belly shaved off, she's still the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life.

What does any of this have to do with writing, you ask? Calm your butt, I'm getting to that. Now that I know she's okay and the biggest stress is gone, my mind is ready to get going on things, ready to write, ready to explode with ideas. Seriously. I had a dream about my characters last night and they were pretty ticked off at me. That's when I know I have to get back to writing.

The good thing is, it's only February 17th, which means I have about six weeks to finish my initial manuscript. The bad thing is, it's February 17th, which means I have only six weeks to finish my initial manuscript. But the other good thing is, I work well under pressure.

The bad thing? I'm not good with stress.

Also, I seem to be into sabotaging myself, which would be lovely, if I didn't insist on doing it all the freaking time. Going on Tumblr and Pinterest only takes me away from writing for a few minutes, half hour at the most, but when I find things on there that really interest  me (i.e., John and Hank Green's Crash Course, thank you very much), I'm gone. I downloaded The Odyssey on my Kindle, preparing myself to read it before the first Crash Course begins in two weeks. Forget that I've already read that thing a thousand times. Forget that I have a deadline. Forget that I have other things to do. It's Homer! It's excitement! Cannibals! Angry Greek gods! What more could a girl ask for?

Sigh. Where's one of James Patterson helper writers when you need them?