Sometimes, you just need to take a break. And sometimes, the break comes to you.

I don’t have too much progress to report on Project Pea this week because there hasn’t been much. I had a lot of things planned last week – a combination of Memorial Day, my birthday, and all of my teacher friends finally on summer break – and luckily, my workload was light enough that I could take that time to spend with friends and family.

But… It felt weird not to write for a few days in a row. Last week was probably the most social I’ve been since the pandemic started – so for once, I didn’t retreat back to my desk after a day of social outings. Could I have forced some time in at the end of the day to work on Project Pea? Yes. But I know my limits. I’ve learned that for me, personally, it’s better to make time up later than trying to force myself to write when I’m spent – and a whole day of travelling and visiting thoroughly exhausts me.

So, at about 8,000 words behind where I should have been in Project Pea at the end of last week, I decided to work over the weekend. I didn’t mind, since I had quite an extended weekend last week, and I just gave myself a light workload anyway with plenty of time to relax and recuperate.

I actually forgot how nice it is to work on my book on a day when I’m not doing other work. There’s less pressure, more time to think, less distractions…

This is what happens when you just let things happen rather than worrying about how behind you are. Sometimes, you discover magic. At the very least, you do yourself a favour by staying calm. I’ve set a goal for myself that I know I need to complete, and in the end, 8k words out of 80k is small potatoes. I’ll make it.

And maybe I’ll even get ahead of my schedule by writing a little extra on weekends from now on. But for now, I left my main characters in a bad spot that I should probably get them out of…

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Photo by Ramiro Mendes on Unsplash