Demotivated

Not unmotivated; that would indicate that I simply don't have anything pushing me to be creative.

DEmotivated; as in seeing so much negativity in my personal and professional circles lately that it makes me just shut down and not want to function on anything more than a very basic level.

Just a week or so ago I was trying to give advice on how to stay on top of your writing game during the holidays. Boy, I need my own advice at this point.

The bustle of the holiday season seems to have everyone's knickers in a twist over the past several days. Everywhere I go people are being terse and unfeeling in their interactions with one another. People tend to take one another for granted and never fully appreciate what it is like to be on the opposite end of the ferocity emanating from them. Mindfulness goes out the window and the holiday season invariably devolves into a hostile display of how unhappy this time of year actually makes us.

It's not all bad. There are a lot of good times around the holidays -- but it seems that GETTING to that happy place takes and emotional toll on a good many of us.

Social media is a prime example of this. As we get closer to the holidays the different subgroups on Twitter within the Writing Community have completely lost their marbles. Authors and reviewers are at one another's throats. Traditionally published authors and Independent authors are tearing into one another. There is so much punching down that I am beginning to feel like a well kneaded dough. I'm not even taking the brunt of it, because I have pretty much withdrawn into my shell until January.

So what is the point of me writing this meandering post, other than to complain about people being nasty to one another? How about using it as an opportunity to explore what life is like from the perspective of the person on the other side of the conversation. If you feel like someone is being unjustly snarky try to put yourself in their shoes for a few minutes before you bang out that witty retort. Instead of sucking the life out of someone's day maybe you can learn something about yourself and the situation that someone else finds their self in. It only takes a moment to ruin someone's day or week but taking an extra moment to contemplate the situation could save someone's bad day or week, instead.

Happy Holidays.

Be kind.