Holy stressfest, Batman.
The past two days have not been … ideal … for me. If my life the last couple months has proven anything, it is that I should not be in a high-stress field. Like, nothing with actual real pressure, like being a doctor. I become physically ill when things get stressful. My anxieties affect me in a big way. This week, I was completely in charge of my newspaper. Being the editor already stresses me out, but this week, I had to make sure ads were placed correctly, pictures were properly edited, I had to layout all but one page and I had to still write all my normal stories and produce or edit all the other content.
It showed. It wasn’t a great time. I had to troubleshoot an ad today (one that came in pre-made, looked fine, but didn’t show up in the files the printer received) and it stressed me out so badly my hands were shaking.
I know my anxiety has never been this bad in the past. And I know it’s the depression-esque things I’ve been going through the past several months that are making them affect me so badly now. I don’t sleep much. I get really sick to my stomach. I am sad a lot.
But I got my newspaper done and I’m damn proud of it. Which is excellent news, because our designer will be out again next week, leaving me another full paper and our special weekend shopper edition to lay out in the next seven days.
I just want to be a writer. I want to drink tea* and deal with whether my fictional character will live or die at the end of the book. That’s the kind of stress I want. Meeting deadline with my novel’s editor breathing down my neck. Or sales not being quite as good as projected.
It’s ridiculous when I get this stressed out about something like a newspaper. But I want it to be so perfect. I am proud of what my team (however small it is) and I have built our newspaper into. It’s the strongest since I started and I know I’m a big part of that. And I feel this need to continue to make it something I feel the readers deserve. But this week, I felt very alone. I didn’t have support. I wrote, I did the layout, I made the corrections, I gathered police reports, I built ads and made sure others were in place or in the right format.
BUT I ended those two days of hell with a nice trip to the 50 cent movie night at the local theater. I saw Star Trek Into the Darkness. FINALLY. And I freaking loved it. The movie was perfectly cast. I laughed. I cried (and cried and cried and cried). I was on the edge of my seat and I felt emotionally destroyed (in the best possible way) when I left the theater. I needed that.
Another fun thing is this delicious, nutritious dinner I had late Monday at my desk. Dinner of champions.**
* I don’t really drink tea. I just thought that was a fiction writer thing to say. I am pretty fond of iced tea. Unsweetened.
** By champion I mean cranky, hungry journalist going on hour 15 at work who really just bought this so she could have the Capri Sun.
Enter Stage Write 
❤ Small newspapers are the worst for your sanity, I feel ya. But I love you very much and I hope you're doing better.