I think I have figured out why self annihilation is so appealing – it is always easier to start afresh, wipe the slate clean, start from scratch. It may take more effort and time, and there are no guarantees that you’ll succeed this time, but it is easier to erase the board than to find your mistake and fix it.
And shockingly, this is true for writing as well. Wading through a plot that keeps getting more and more muddled is not as much fun as bringing out the shiny new notebook to make notes for a new story.
So next time you want to press that self destruct button (of deleting the entire manuscript or deleting your blog or deciding you were going to stop writing), try the following measures. If these don’t help, by all means, press that button.
1. Have a guilty pleasure – mine is Grey’s Anatomy or the Graham Norton show. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry – very cathartic, which is exactly what you need when you’re in the dumps.
2. Hug it out – I am not a hugger but my sister is. In fact, she doesn’t just hug me, she will sit on me! It does wonders for my mood. Munna bhai knew what he was talking about when he called it Jaadu ki Jhappi.
3. Chocolate! (no explanations for this one, obviously)
4. Cry – the best advice that I ever received was from a teacher: “You’re not made of salt. You won’t melt if you cry.” If you don’t like people seeing you cry, use the loo.
5. Shower – there is something about the flowing water that unleashes the tears, the knots, the emotions…and the best part? No one is watching!
6. Sleep – the ultimate shut down weapon.
7. Ask for help – because even superheroes need sidekicks *wink wink*
This is a follow-up post to Show me the meaning. You needn’t have read the previous one to understand this…but it’d be nice if you do – it’d help with my blog stats. Also the matching header images give it away. Okay I am rambling. Time to stop.
tales of Suchita 
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