you know that feeling, when you realise how many great ideas are banking up in your mind, and then you compare them with what you have physically produced and you start panicking?

An ms under revision, partly-written plotlines that will be entirely rewritten if I ever use them, ideas in scraps and bits.

I need one of them at least to be ready to go NOW. I have to email all the agents in the world NOW, but first I have to have something to send them. Something amazing and polished. Surely ONE of those ideas is strong enough, if I just sit down and write it?

ahem.

Welcome to my brain. Here’s something I feel I’ve learnt as I’ve gotten older, and it doesn’t only apply to creative panic:

Acting on panic is not productive. If it’s 8 at night, and I feel like I’ve gotten nothing done all day, hurrying about getting a hundred words down here, an outline of a drawing down there is going to do nothing but make the unfinished feeling worse.

I’m getting better at thinking: Stop. Breathe. Do something that will actively make you feel good, like having a bath. Clear your space and your brain, and prepare for a productive day tomorrow.