Sleeping, But Not Really

I've been exhausted for much of the past week. I couldn't understand why. I got a fair amount of sleep - I'm always up for more, but if felt like I had barely squeezed in four hours when I know I slept six. Even this weekend, I got quite a bit of sleep, yet I'm still exhausted today. I realized on Friday that I was doing some of my sleep apnea-ish things (feeling like I couldn't breathe, startling myself awake as I fell asleep because I had stopped breathing, etc). So I figured that was the cause. But nearly every night this week? I've never had problems sleeping like that. Then I remembered that sleep apnea sorts of problems can be caused by anxiety and stress.

Well, duh, it's the holidays. I may have been ahead of the shopping curve, but this time of year is never just peaches and light. Still, I really have no reason to be stressed about the holidays. We've done the baking, the shopping, the mailing, the decorating. And we did it in fairly laid back fashion. So that would only explain part of my stress. Then it hit me.

I have a submission out to an agent, and I'm still mired in revisions.

That's it. That's it right there. That's the hot button. My writing. I'm not all that nervous about the agent thing consciously, but I bet my subconscious is pacing a path in my gray matter. And I went and gave myself a somewhat strict deadline for finishing the revisions - by the end of the year. Well, one thing 2003 has taught me is that I don't deal well with writing under a deadline. This obviously has to change if I expect to make a career of this. But I still haven't found a good way of dealing with it. It's so foreign to me to resist a deadline, or to even have a deadline have such a negative impact on my ability to finish something. Maybe once it's my career, it'll be different. Who knows.