It was, I guess you would say, kind of as you would expect it to be. I mean Murakami turns out to be all the way down a Murakami character. He is this kind of ordinary man who keeps a very regimented schedule and has for the last thirty years. He goes to bed at 9 o’clock, wakes up at 4 in the morning and goes straight to his desk and writes for five hours or more. And then he goes for his runs, he eats a very healthy diet, and then he goes back to sleep. And so he’ll tell you, he’s just the most ordinary guy in the world and the only time he’s special is when he’s sitting at his desk in this kind of trance of concentration and he’s writing and he thinks of it as a descent into the deepest parts of his being and he just dredges up all this strange stuff that the ordinary man has no insight into or even knowledge about.

- Sam Anderson, writer for the New York Times magazine, on being questioned about his profile of Murakami

I think I’m beginning to experience writing burnout. Four to six deadlines a week for several weeks in a row will do that to you. It’s the busiest I’ve been in my entire career and I’ve had some really busy periods over the years.

I saw this quote on Facebook recently: Don’t let anyone EVER dull your SPARKLE.

I think with all the work, work, work in my life lately, I’ve lost a bit of my sparkle. I’ve still got the silver and gold sheen, but I’m missing the glitter in my life. I’ve got two deadlines this week (today and tomorrow) but here’s how I plan to add the gold dust, that little bit extra, over the remaining few days:

I’ll be reading. I’m halfway (or more) through about eight or so books. I pick one up, get distracted, pick another up, get distracted, and so on. I’d really like to commit to a few of those books and actually finish them. (They’re all good, I’m just experiencing book-based ADD.)

I’ll be playing. With Jude. A lot. I have been already, but it’s been the distracted in-between deadlines sort of playing, which usually means I’m not fully present here or there. I intend to do a lot of fully-present playing over the next few days.

I’ll be baking. The original plan was to bake cookies for my mum on Mother’s Day, but hey, I spent the entire day resting and catching up on my sleep, so that worked out just as well. I’ll do it this week.

I’ll be watching. Movies, old TV show reruns, new TV shows. Anything that doesn’t require me to think.

I’ll be calling. Friends. The husband who’s away on business. The sister-in-law I’ve been meaning to have a long overdue conversation with. The parents-in-law who I want to Skype with.

I’ll be blogging. I know, I know, how can I be taking a break from writing if I’m… well, writing. But blogging doesn’t feel like writing. It’s not work. It’s… well, it’s blogging. It’s like catching up with a bunch of friends on a regular basis. I also I intend to get back to reading all the blogs I haven’t been able to check out lately.

And of course, I’ll be sleeping. Because I need it.

The great thing about having a bi-racial family located across two continents is that we get to celebrate several holidays twice. Holidays like Mother’s Day. Earlier this year it was Mother’s Day in the UK, today it’s Mother’s Day in the US and in India.

I’ve shamelessly already celebrated it, but what the heck, I’ll do it again. It’s all the more special because today my own mum’s staying over at my place.

I think the three of us might have to spend the Sunday in bed, eating junk, reading books, and talking, talking, talking.

Hope you’re having a fantastic day, too!

So like I’ve mentioned, I’m participating in the WordCount Blogathon, a yearly event in which participants blog for 31 straight days. This year, 251 bloggers are participating and I’ve been trying to visit as many blogs as I can on a daily basis. I have to say, I’ve found dozens of gems. I’ve subscribed to a few of these blogs already and there are so many great entries being posted on a daily basis that I thought I’d share some with you as an introduction to some of these lovely people.

May 1: Let’s kick off the Blogathon and let the games begin. Inspirational writer and bike Jackie Dishner writes about her BIKE philosophy: find your Best self, access your Inner strength, develop your Killer instincts, and use your Expressive voice.

May 2: Simply Jan reminds us to forget being a perfectionist and just GO.

May 3: For writers, advice from writer John Beck to learn from Shakespeare.

May 4: Kirsten D. reminds us of the transience of life and why not to take things and people in your life for granted.

May 5: Michelle Rafter, organizer of the Blogathon does a Week 1 recap with some of the international bloggers (including moi).

May 6: A timely reminder from Marcie Brock to rest, relax and reboot.

May 7: Do you have a clean office? Do you make time to sweep under the cabinets? No? Jennifer Willis has a few housekeeping tips for you.

May 8: This is my favorite entry of the entire Blogathon so far. How’s that for a recommendation? Stay focused and keep shipping. I’ve taped that to my wall.

May 9: You don’t have to fight your life battles alone. Jackie Dishner shows you how to elicit support from your friends in times of trouble. (Can you tell I love her blog?)

May 10: I’ll leave you with this amazing and incredible story about Lilly, a pit bull who saved her owner from being hit by an oncoming train.

Yesterday, frustrated and overwhelmed by my e-mail, I posted the following status update on Facebook:

It’s official. I can no longer cope with the sheer number of e-mails coming my way. 414 unread e-mails in my Inbox and that’s after an hour of reading, responding, deleting. Tips? Advice? Help!

I got a flood of responses, both on Facebook and Twitter and while not everything is applicable to me, most of it is advice I can use. I do file, categorize and tag important e-mails, so that’s not my problem. It’s the numbers. The volume is hard to handle, and a lot of it is important. I have a separate e-mail address for newsletters and unimportant but useful things, like Google alerts, that don’t clog up my regular Inbox. But I regularly receive stuff from public relations departments, editors, fellow writers, aspiring writers, friends, family, writing groups, etc, that have currently left my Inbox looking like… well, pretty much like my office, actually. Disjointed, unorganized, papers everywhere. Stuffed full of things I will need and things I will not need. The problem is 414 was just yesterday. I looked through almost all of it, and I’m back up to 259 today. It’s unstoppable!

Earlier this morning, a friend sent me a link to this article about coping with e-mail overload and I’ve been dealing with it all today with a set timer, and I’m happy to report that so far, this is working absolutely brilliantly! I’ve currently got 46 unread e-mails in my Inbox, but like another friend said on Facebook, Inbox zero is overrated. So I’ll just let them sit.

If e-mail’s taking over your life and work as well, give it a try. So far, it seems to work.

Did I sound depressed yesterday? Well, I was a little bit. On days like that, I typically stay away from blogs, Facebook and Twitter, but I’m participating in the 2012 Blogathon, which means I’m committed to blogging every day. Blame Michelle Rafter.

Some work to share with you today. I’ve been writing a number of articles for a new website. Well, it launched yesterday and now I’m ready to share some of the early work with you.

How Safe is Your Birth Control?

9 Simple Ways to Improve Your Memory

9 Self-Checks Every Woman Should Do

Why Isn’t Your Diet Working?

5 “Me Time” Ideas

Tell me what you think!

I feel like I’m being tested. Like the universe is saying, “Think you can handle six deadlines in a week? Well, here are three more assignments, due before Friday. And I’m sending your husband off on a business trip for two weeks. See if you can handle that.”

I’m not up for the challenge, but since I have no choice in the matter, I’m soldiering on. At least our savings are back up to pre-baby levels.

Last year, May 8 was Mother’s Day. It was the day we found out I was pregnant and the fact that I’d been falling asleep on my desk and had on at least one occasion blacked out, finally made sense. Now I’m sitting across from my four-month-old, who for the first time today, has held a rattle and discovered that he likes it. The shape, the noise, all new, all fascinating. He won’t let it go.

Watching him cling desperately to that rattle reminds me of the things I find hard to let go.

I’m currently reading the book When Everything Changes, Change Everything by Neale Donald Walsch. I picked it up several years ago when I was going through a rough time in my life and never really finished it.

The last month has been emotionally taxing. Some of my family and friends have been going through drastic life changes, traumas, and tragedies, and it’s been a few weeks of non-stop bad news arriving one after the other and while it has put life and a lot of pettiness in perspective, it’s also been a time of grieving. A good friend of mine lost her child recently; her daughter was only a couple of months younger than Jude. This news has brought me to my knees. I am shocked, I am angry. Sometimes breathing is difficult.

I decided to revisit this book again. I felt like I needed an anchor, some grounding. It has made me put my life under the microscope and decide whether certain situations, certain relationships, can go on the way they have in the past. Whether letting go with love, kindness and goodwill, even as it breaks my heart, may be the happier option for everyone involved.

There’s a line in the book that resonates with me: Change is an announcement that something is not working. Or to put it another way, if something’s not working, change it. Fix it. Or let it go.

Be the change. Create the change. Accept the change.

Sometimes, it’s the little lessons that are the hardest.

I’ve missed my books.

This weekend, I put aside work, housework and the dozens of errands I had to run, to sit down and get back to the business of reading. It’s been said a million times before, so I’m really just paraphrasing here, but when I sit down to read, I feel like I’m with a trusted friend. When I’m going through a rough time in my life, I’ll pick up books I’ve already read, whose endings I know, whose characters feel as close to me as people in my own life. When I’m feeling adventurous, I might try a completely new genre. When I’m bored, I read. When I’m tired, I read. When I’m stressed, I read.

Reading makes me happy. I can let my mind drift into the pages and forget about everything around me.

In all the busy-ness that has been my life lately, I’ve had very little time for reading. And I’ve missed it terribly. So this weekend was a treat to myself, a permission slip to get lost in worlds separate from the one to which I belong.

This is what’s on my night stand at the moment:

1. The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth

2. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

3. Shelter by Harlan Coben

4. When Everything Changes, Change Everything by Neale Donald Walsch

5. Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie

6. Open by Andre Agassi

7. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

8. The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy

I belong to an online writing group of non-fiction writers who’re trying to finish their first novels. Some of us have been at it for over a year (*cough cough*), some for several years, and some for just a few weeks or months. Many are starting anew.

We decided, after a period of relative calmness, that it was time to dust off those pages and start again with new goals, new ideas, and new words. I am, as you know, trying to begin work on my novel again and this time, instead of lofty goals, I’ve decided on a reasonable target of 1,000 words a week.

We were discussing in our re-introductions to each other why each of us writes and it got me thinking about my reasons for writing non-fiction, my reasons for writing fiction, and my reasons for writing this blog.

No matter how I try to differentiate the non-fiction from the personal from the entirely fictional, it all comes down to this: I write because that is, essentially, how I make sense of the world.

It wasn’t always this way. Growing up, talking things through with my best friend was the only way I knew to calm myself. I found myself in trouble frequently, I got involved in drama often, and it was always my best friend’s calm exterior that managed to put me at ease. Her words soothed me.

As I’ve grown older and writing has become an integral part of my life, words still soothe me, but I find that often, they’re simply my own. Whenever I’m feeling stressed or upset about something, I write in my journal. I reason things out, I give voice to my feelings, I’m angry, I’m sad, I’m happy. I allow myself to simply let loose, to let those thoughts that are bouncing about in my head fall on to the page and be free.

I have heard from other people– writers and non-writers both– that just writing about a problem in their journal sometimes leads to several solutions. I’ve interviewed psychologists who advise patients to write down their feelings because letting it go in that way ensures that the bottled up emotions don’t one day erupt.

Writing brings a context to certain events, it gives shape to experiences, it allows me to explore feelings and thoughts I didn’t even know I had.

Why do I write? Because I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t.

Why do you write?

When I first returned to work in late February, a new-to-me editor sent me three rush assignments. These were not easy pieces and I had to spend an entire weekend getting them done at a time when I was just about getting the hang of this parenting thing. I took them on, not only because who doesn’t want editors sending you work when you’re back from maternity leave but also because I knew that if I did this, I would have lots more assignments coming my way from this client.

Short-term sacrifices can lead to long-term rewards. This morning I received four ready-made assignments from this editor who really liked the work I submitted back in March and wants me on board for a new project they’re going to launch later this year. They have a requirement of about 5,000 (very easy to write) words a week.

I’ve just added this client to my “Regulars” list. Two more to go.

In late February, a very good friend of ours had come to stay with us, and during dinner one evening, the conversation shifted to how Sam and I met. “How long have you guys been married?” he asked and we both did quick calculations in our heads.

“Two years on March 6,” I said.

“That’s next week!”

Sam and I both looked at each other, sort of in amazement, and then we laughed. We’d both forgotten that the two-year anniversary of our wedding was coming up.

This isn’t just a random incident. My mother calls me each year in October because it’s the anniversary of my engagement to Sam, but I don’t remember the date (I think it’s the 3rd, but I could be wrong). I have a yearly reminder set for Sam’s birthday and our anniversary as well as other small things that are nice to remember but aren’t terribly important in the grand scheme of things.

That’s the thing. I’m not the sweating the small stuff kind of person. I’m unlikely to call you every week, I probably won’t remember your kid’s birthday, I won’t write to ask about your holiday, I’ll forget to call a day ahead and wish you good luck on the new job that you’re dreading starting.

But I’m a big believer in being there for the big things. I won’t miss your wedding, I’ll come visit when your child is born, I’ll send you flowers before you open the doors for your dream business, I’ll stand outside the operation theater during your surgery, I’ll bring pizza when you move, I’ll buy three copies when you publish your book.

I think most of us are this way. Perhaps not to my level of extreme, but nevertheless many of us aren’t focused on the day-to-day, especially those of us who are creative and spend far too much time inside our own heads. You can expect ginormous efforts from us once in a while– and we’ll be happy to make them– but for the most part, our doors are closed, our earphones plugged in, and our minds far far removed from reality as we happily go about doing whatever it is that we do and that most normal people have no comprehension of.

Normal people don’t understand that they can’t make us feel guilty for not interacting with them on their terms because these are not things we find important. They’re simply not on our radar. When I say that I haven’t left the house in two weeks, I’m neither lying nor exaggerating. I took my son to the doctor for his vaccinations on the 19th of April and have since been holed up, very happily I might add, in my cave, working on things that hold meaning to me. I walk the dog and that is enough fresh air for me on a daily basis. I understand that I’m a recluse, a hermit. I make no apologies for it. (Get off my lawn! Bloody kids.)

People don’t understand my lifestyle and they get upset by my indifference to their social events. But I’m rarely bothered. To me, these are little things. My big thing is my writing. My big thing is my son, my husband, my family. My big things are the best friends who I love and hold dear even if we haven’t spoken in months. The older I get, the more important the big things become for me. And the smaller the little things seem.

In writing, too, it’s important to focus on the big things. This is where I haven’t yet found my balance. I end up doing too many little things at the expense of the big ones. I put off pitching my editor at The New York Times because I’m so caught up perfecting my pitch for the 20-cents-a-word market. Instead of spending the last week focusing on a project that means a lot to me and has the potential to save lives, I’ve been dillying dallying on Facebook and Twitter, reluctant to begin.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the little day-to-day things that we lose track of our long-term goals. My long-term goal is not to have the most “likes” on Facebook. My lifetime goal is to win the Booker. (There, I said it.) But here’s the thing: Not one, not a single person who didn’t finish writing a novel has ever won the Booker. Fancy that.

(And yes, I know. What would you guys do without me to actually TELL you these things?)

There is no easy solution to this, unfortunately. The novel beckons repeatedly, but my family needs my income. My son needs my time and attention. It’s easy to push away the big picture and focus too narrowly on the little things that surround you. It’s far too easy to get caught up in the little itty bitty stuff, both in writing and in life.

That’s a mistake. Open up those folders. Hold dear those dreams. Take a step, however small, towards your new life.

That is the only way I know to take today’s big picture and transform it into tomorrow’s small reality.

Every time I open myself up and allow myself to become vulnerable, I’m met with a flood of love, support, and commiseration.

There’s a lesson in this, which is that it’s not when you’re pretending your life is stress-free and perfect that people appreciate you, associate with you and feel connected to you, it’s when you pull down that imaginary armor and say, well, here’s me. This is what I’m going through. This is my life. These are my choices. For better or for worse.

Because deep inside, we’re all struggling with much of the same problems, the same day-to-day issues, the same emotional ups and downs. And when someone comes out and says, enough damn it, this is what’s going on in my life and I’m not going to pretend to be strong and brave and above it all, we respect that. We respect that more than we respect the career successes, we respect it more than the life achievements, the constant happy states.

We like vulnerability. It allows us to see the real you. It allows us to connect with you on a deeper level.

I got an outpouring of support after I shared my birth story and I just wanted to thank all of you who read it, commented, or e-mailed. I’m glad I did. It made me feel like I have friends all over the world who care about me and my family.

Thank you.