Hello folks,

It's really hit me. Tomorrow will be seven weeks since I entered lockdown (and last touched another human) and up til now I've coped alright. Well. That's a lie. "Alright" is a flattening of my own curves. In reality, I spent three weeks with my brain fizzing like an overheated engine. Lots of noise and no traction. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, two glorious weeks unlike anything I've had in years. Maybe it was the sun coming out. Maybe it was just getting into the rhythm of the thing. Maybe starting from basics and slowly building my routine up again did the trick. Whatever it was, I stopped being scared of the pages and churned them out at a rate I genuinely never thought I could do. Handed in three different projects, including a draft of a play that I adore. I've not felt like I've loved something I've written in a long while and this was the most "me" thing I've ever done. I even started dreaming again (or rather remembering them), every single night. Lesson learned there: Don't get stuck writing pitches or outlines for too long, you'll forget why you're doing this. So yes. Absolutely nailing it.

And then.

Thursday this week, I just couldn't stop shake the anxiety, no matter what I did and all my smug productivity shattered along with it. I felt uncreative, I felt like slow and, most corrosive of all, I felt jealous - I rarely get that last one, I try very hard not to let it get anywhere near me because God it is a nightmare to sponge off once it sticks to you.

Having had two proper days off this weekend, I think I'm up for coming back to it tomorrow. (Hilariously, I managed to break my glasses while getting out of my chair to collect my new fixed phone camera so squinting will also be making a come back.) In all likelihood, I expect the next set of weeks to be less long stretches of up or down and more the familiar shuffle of good and bad days within the same bloc. Sometimes stopping on those bad days is the best and only thing to do to not feel like a terrible human being. Other times, that's just not realistic - whether it be deadlines or other commitments. So I asked myself, if I have to stick with it: "What does a good bad look like?" What are the conditions that I want to make sure are met before I go "sod this!" and go drown in The Seas of Content.

To start with, I had to be clear what I thought a good day was. For me, that's at least six to eight hours of working time and, if drafting, at least a thousand words done. Taking that as a baseline, here's what I think a good bad day looks like:

- I keep my arse in the chair for at least four hours. This might not be an issue for you, but I do need my brain to remember the rhythm of a working day. I find if I can do this, then my brain consistently mulls over it even when I'm not at the desk.

- I do something to make working tomorrow a little nicer. That might be cleaning my desk or ordering new batteries for my mouse or fixing my chair. Something that you've been meaning to do but keep putting off.

- If I'm drafting, I write at least 350 words. I originally wrote 500 there but I think if I tell myself I can sack it off at 350, then the belligerent person in me will make sure I wind up at 500 anyway. Either way, roughly halving your usual expectations when you realise you're having a bad one is I think not a terrible way to go.

- I check my delivery dates are realistic and be honest if they're not. I'll go into my calendar and do some re-arranging to try and buy me a bit more time if I need it. If I still don't think it's do-able, it's time to send an e-mail saying so. In my experience, people are sympathetic to delays as long as you're clear about it ahead of time and you're not imminently shooting/rehearsing or not telling them last minute when they've cleared time to read what you're sending in. I've done that and it's not good for you or your collaborators.

- If possible, I clear my day after. One of the biggest wreckers of my routine is meetings and phone calls. They always make me nervous and I have to overprep for them to not sound like a gibbering idiot, even when I know that I know exactly what I'm talking about. I also get pretty wiped out by them so picking up the metaphorical pen afterwards is excruciating. If there's a non-urgent meeting and there's still over 24 hours between my suffering self and it, I will try and give myself a whole uninterrupted working day to pull it back. The same rules as above applies: If it's a multi-time zone thing, urgent or too late in the day you have to suck it up.

- I don't use chips to soak up the tears. Most the writers I know are atheists, but all writers will, at some point, subscribe to this particular belief: "If I eat everything in the fridge, the script will somehow write itself." On a good bad day, I will cast out this heresy for the sake of my soul and my waistline.

That's me. It's less advice and more an agreement with myself. What does yours look like for you?

Hope you're keeping well, looking after yourself and others, and being particularly kind to your pets. If they're anything like mine, they're really freaking annoyed that you're around all the time and cramping their style.

Vin x