What it’s like to be me at the moment

8:02 in the morning and I’ve snuck into work early to get some writing done. This has become a particularly well-worn part of my routine of late – so much so that I’ve come into work early on days when I wasn’t planning on writing, simply ’cause my morning habit is largely this: wake up, noodle around on the smart phone for a couple of minutes, shower, breakfast, drive to work, buy a cup of coffee, write 500 words. Most days, that 500 words is fiction. Today, its blogging stuff, ’cause I’m prepping for November when I run a genre writer’s convention in Parramatta.

I seem very calm on the surface, but underneath I’m thrashing around like a shark that smells blood. Or I’m kidding myself about how calm I seem, ’cause the crazy is very close to the surface these days, and it doesn’t take much to let it out.

I know this feeling. I’ve felt it a couple of times before, the month before a big event, and yet I forget it’s coming. It’s a heady mix of so-much- shit-to-do and what-if-it-all-goes-fucking-wrong, and everything feels urgent, regardless of how important it actually is. Getting program done? URGENT. Cooking dinner? URGENT. Washing your hands after using the bathroom? URGENT. Groceries? URGENT. Re-arranging all your furniture at two o’clock in the morning? URGENT. Clipping a hangnail? OMG, SO FUCKING URGENT.

Mostly it means I nod and get done what I can get done, and try not to fret about the rest (lots of this stuff is in my head, after all, except for the things that aren’t). It also means I dread my work email, ’cause my work email is full of things that I need to get done RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW.

And three weeks from now, at about this time, the convention will be done and I’ll be slouching towards a flight back to Queensland, eyeing the day-star with suspicion and wondering why everyone seemed to be having a good time when everything went so wrong. This is the nature of running events – you’re too close to things, you see nothing but flaws, and you assume everything has gone worse than it has.

Then, somewhere along the line, the Stockholm Syndrome kicks in, and you agree to do it again ’cause it seems like a good idea. I mean, those people you met? All those crazy, wonderful, talented people you ran the convention for? They’re actually kind of awesome and it’s nice to run an event that brings them all together.

I’m posting this here ’cause, really, posting is OMG URGENT at the moment, just like everything else.

Also ’cause, next year, I’m going to look back on this blog for patterns I need to be aware of, and this seems like one of those things. Three weeks out there will be crazy. Serious, serious crazy. It’s just part of the process.