Night Terror!

   I had a night terror last night for the first time in years. In case you don’t realize what I mean by night terror, I’ll tell you guys what my experience was with them when I was little. I would be completely asleep but also sort of awake. I would be dreaming about something terrifying, but I would spring up out of bed in a complete panic. My eyes would be wide open, and I wouldn’t be able to catch my breath. A lot of the time, I would also feel like my heart was going to explode. That was the main thing I remembered about them. I remember my dreams, but I don’t actually remember running around the house in a panic and saying things that made no sense. That’s just what I’m told I would do when I was little. Here’s the thing, though. It happened again last night, and it might surprise you what I was dreaming about when I felt so panicked that it felt like a thousand pounds was sitting on my chest.

   I distinctly remember dreaming about how I needed to get more likes, write at least six thousand new words, edit a few chapters, write a new blog, post something on my regular Facebook and my street team page, promote my books on whatever sites would let me, and finally, to live. I just couldn’t understand how I was supposed to complete all of these tasks and still be able to have one moment of fun or at least peace. That’s when I started to feel myself losing it. It was like my airway completely shut off. I was told I was talking about likes or something in my half-awake state. (I assume on Facebook.)

   There’s a point to all of this. Many dreams exist to tell you something important. My body felt like it was dying, and my mind was in absolute turmoil to the point that I couldn’t even control it. That’s how I feel a lot now. I love writing, but I hate having to spend every waking minute doing a list of things. I’ve gone out with a friend once in the last four months, and forget about dating. It’s been non-existent, and for what? Because some people say that I need to do all of this? If I’m going to write, edit, promote, blog, and interact with people all the time, then something’s going to give eventually, and I’m afraid that something is going to be me. I don’t feel happy anymore with what I’m doing, and what I’m really writing to tell everyone is this. Things are about to change. I’m going to write what I want to write, books are going to come out slower, and I’m not going to take any of this so seriously. It’s killing me to take it seriously. Most importantly, I’m going to start focusing on what really matters. I need a life outside of this. I work on this stuff eighty-four hours a week. If you don’t think that’s true, then I invite you to come live with me for a week. You’ll see. It’s all I have time for. I’m scaling back to no more than forty hours a week, and I’m taking every minute of the weekend for myself. I need to find a girlfriend, friends who share my interests, and a quiet place to just shut off my mind. I’m literally working half of my life away, and the other half is being spent in thought of what I need to be doing. (Even when I’m asleep apparently.)

   Thanks for reading, and I hope you guys won’t mind waiting a little longer for books to come out in the future. I put out twelve books in ten months, but over the next ten months, I’ll be lucky to put out half of that. I think that’s for the best, though. I need to enjoy what I do, and to do that, it can’t be something that’s nightmare worthy. I still have a lot of passion for writing, and that’s what I want to concentrate on - that passion. I don’t want to concentrate on the negative things about this or to be dragged down by an endless amount of tasks. This isn’t a job. It’s a lifestyle. Real writers are addicted to writing. We couldn’t stop if we wanted to. It’s just who we are, so I’m going to stop treating this like a job. This is my passion, and it’s a place to show my creativity, no matter how long that takes or what anyone thinks of it.