If there is anyone out there an expert on psychology (not abnormal, mind you – I can hear you yelling at your computer screens. Stop it, you’re disturbing the others at work), I am curious as to whether or not the theory of ego depletion plays into work efficiency. I have noticed that when I am writing, I tend to have a day where everything is zipping along, a day when I struggle to get out the basic word count and a day that I feel I should close up shop early to avoid giving myself a concussion from banging my head on the desk. I used to think that it was because I needed to warm up, which is why I continue this blog. Today? Sure, I slept in a little bit and I might be getting my caffeine ration a little later, but even yesterday I did the same thing – the large difference being breakfast was cereal instead of pop-tarts. I highly doubt that the entirety of my writing career is going to hinge on the notion that my novels are fueled by peanut-butter cocoa cereal rather than a fudge Pop-Tart knock-off. Back to ego depletion: I am curious if all of this is just because I throw so much into the first day, that I drag through the second day and I feel the need to charge up on the third day – sprinting like Usain Bolt rather than looking to the long haul like Haile Gebrselassie. I’m eating lunch right now (oh, the Healthy Choice Top Chef Café Steamers are wonderful! Get one now. Right now. Turn this thing off and get one) and starting to feel good. I might go back and try to get at least half the word count done today. I went over by 236 on Monday and Tuesday, so if I do half today and really hard charge Thursday and Friday, I will be able to hopefully average out. Then again, I also had to deal with a dick at work, so the stress from that might be carrying over.
Anyway – in the novel I am in a rare lull. The main characters are free and heading to the first village so we get some much needed down time in between disasters. I think with this particular part, I ‘ll have Tyro delve a little more into her past memories now that she has the time to concentrate on it. The previous couple of chapters it was referred to in a passive sense just because I had to keep the action going at times. Now that we’re a little more sedate, I want to give her the chance to get to know the other voices in her head… wow – that sounded a lot less crazy-town in my head, but you get the idea. I don’t want the other personalities to turn into some sort of deus ex machina (or would that be deus ex memor?), but rather show how they have contributed to the development of her personality. I guess that part of the problems I’m having with this is that I’m trying to develop the voices on the fly. I have a name and what they did, but the rest of them aren’t as well fleshed out. Maybe I should work on that while I seem to be in a lull here as far as writing.
I should go on ahead and post this so I can try to save the last 45 minutes before I have to go to work and pray I don’t have to hear from that dick again. Oh, I need to remember to get the rest of those podcasts Archived through dropbox in case I Wanted to take them with me to work today. Dirk wants to raid my comedy podcasts.
Have a good day.
Sincerely,
Seething Apathy
Seething Apathy 
Seems to me, more to do with overal diet and amount of toxins in your system. caffine/asapartam (in light soda and most processed foods) white sugar, the hormons and amonia in meat etc etc slow the brain and endocrine system down like nothing else and can depleat motivation and the creative proces! Proven many times over!
You’ve never witness the horrors of me not on caffeine, have you? 😀
I think the larger thing is when I go to sleep. I do tend to go to bed later on Monday nights and Tuesday nights as opposed to Sunday nights. Last night, I went to bed at 1:30 instead of 3:30. I feel a lot better and didn’t hit the “silence alarm/hour-thirty-forty-five seconds” count down timer when I woke up. So, I might give that a test run. Also, the restless legs have been taken care of — all I needed was an iron supplement apparently. I’m going to try going to bed earlier and taking the iron pills for a couple of weeks and seeing what happens. In getting less sleep, I should also need less caffeine… or so we hope.
Thanks for responding, I will let you know if anything changes.