Is It Burnout or Sleep Deprivation? On Books and Babies

Shabbat has ended and the house is quiet.

The boys are asleep. Husby has left to meet with some coworkers for drinks (not all alcholic beverages) at the local Applebees and explore this thing called a Social Life.

I was thinking all day that I wanted to spend this post-Shabbat alone time working on As in Days of Old. I'd picked it up again Friday morning and made some progress, and I thought this would be a perfect time to continue.

But I'm so tired I can barely think.

Tomorrow is full of previous commitments. I'm signing over Treasurer duties for our local MOMS Club at the bank in the morning (thankfully this bank has Sunday hours). The boys have swimming lessons at the local JCC. And then we're attending a friend's 4th birthday party.

I don't think there'll be much time for writing. Now's the time. Now!

pressurepressurepressurepressure

I've been spending my working time this past week on Yaldah Publishing work, getting Like a Maccabee out to book reviewers. I still want to start a series on the Yaldah blog on how Maccabee went from manuscript to book. But if there's any hope at all of As in Days of Old being released in 2007, I have to actually finish the thing and get it to beta readers by or before the end of the calendar year so I can start the publishing process all over again next year.

Oh, and I haven't mentioned it yet, but we're trying for another baby, G-d willing (not while I'm typing this, though). And I worry about trying to maintain work hours, even though I work from home - or maybe especially because I work from home, with a newborn around.

Destined to Choose went through its final round of editing when I was 9 months pregnant with Youngest Son and I had visions of promoting it and arranging book signings around his (frequent) naps and drawing on unending energy fueled by maternal bliss.

Yeah. Right. Uh huh.

As you can guess, it didn't happen that way. I've half-joked that I'm not sure if I should try to plan a baby around a book release or plan a book release around a baby. Clearly, I have more control over one than the other.

But there are some time restrictions on the book release. As in Days of Old takes place against the backdrop of Chanukah and an unusually cold Minnesota winter (taken directly from the weather archives of Wunderground for the year in which I'm basing this novel). So the release should be in time for Chanukah and the holiday buying season.

We'll see. It took four years to conceive Oldest Son (long, painful story that I don't want to get into tonight - dark, lonely house and all that), yet only a month to conceive Youngest Son. This time, we've been trying for four months, and I'm reminding myself that Husby and I are partners with G-d on this, and it's not on our (human) timeline when or if this should happen. But I hope it does, G-d willing. I feel this inexplicable gnawing that our family is not yet complete. I'm not getting any younger and I don't want to go through life regretting not trying.

Meanwhile, the book remains unfinished and I sit here rambling on my blog and feeling incredibly tired and waiting until Husby gets home before I can sleep peacefully.

Maybe I'll throw myself a pity party instead. With lots of chocolate. Must have chocolate for a good pity party. But that means I would have to get up. I don't want to get up. Maybe I'll just sit here and write instead...