To date, I’ve written 187,413 words for this project. When I say “project” it seems like a piece of work that has an end. But it has no end, it is an ongoing thing I need to keep contributing to.
I’ve told myself this because I feel it is the right thing to do. With my OCD, I do not allow myself to work outside the rules I feel have been established. This is an ongoing project, it must keep… going.
And I want it to because I do come up with novel pieces. But not always. And all of the work here, sans maybe 5% of it, is evergreen. It is not relevant only to the time it was written.
Right now I do not want to write. My OCD tells me I have to, because I only have twenty days worth of work ready to publish, and I don’t like that number getting under nineteen. Oh, I used to not like it getting under fourteen, but somewhere my mind switched to being more comfortable at nineteen or more.
This is my OCD. It does not help me in giving me the space to write well. It just insists I write. My OCD is soothed when I have more writing in the queue to publish. That has become an obsession.
But my OCD does not care about the quality of work. Just quantity. Just keeping my promise to myself to publish a piece every four days.
So at times, I am stuck here like this. You see, I wanted to write a story about how I am going through a phase of depression recently, and I find it odd that with my OCD I do not keep a calendar of my past moods. As this would be something you’d assume someone with OCD would do. Anyway, that piece will be written, but not today. I don’t have the brainpower to write that piece well enough.
But I need to write. Or so my OCD tells me.
I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t be writing this. I should be waiting until I am inspired enough to write something good.
But now I am here. I am doing this because I feel I have to.
And yet, I look at this piece. What I am writing here. And it’s pretty damn relevant. It isn’t great quality. But it is worth posting.
And now that will feed the dragon that I am chasing every day. (Or every four days!)
So there, this is today’s piece. Or the piece you’ll be reading when I post it.
I should be able to let go of the rules and focus on quality when my brain can produce quality. Until then this will be a job. And my piece count is met for the week.
And this is it. Not even enough to add 500 more words to the count.