Was talking to my agent again this week, and some of his questions were more about the long term career of Jim C. Hines, Author Person.

Not directly, but just in discussing potential projects for me to work on next, which directions I want to go in as an author, and so on.

Meanwhile, my brain is melting slush. Long term career? My long term right now is getting through the afternoon and figuring out what to make for dinner tonight.

A *lot* of my writer friends talk about feeling underproductive this year, and how productivity is much more of a struggle.

It's nice knowing I'm not alone. It's still frustrating as hell to feel unproductive, and to struggle to stay motivated and working.

Nine months of isolation. U.S. daily COVID deaths in the 3000s. Political WTFery that makes the stunts on Jackass look calm and well thought out. Realistically, I figure we're all doing good just to wake up and get out of bed each morning.

But it means it's a lot easier for any little thing to knock me off balance. Agent doesn't love a project the way I do. Email from someone feeling betrayed by the way I sell books on my website. Another round of billing mix-ups with AT&T.

Then there's the personal stuff. Tomorrow would have been my wife's 47th birthday. A week from today, it will have been two years since I took her to the ER and we learned she had cancer. I'm working to make Christmas happen for the kids...

This isn't a plea for sympathy. Most of us have been beaten down pretty hard this year. We're all hurting. We're worried about our physical, mental, and emotional survival, which means there's not as much left for things like, for example, mapping out my writing career.

I know my advice to anyone else would be to be gentle with yourself. Do what you can, but let yourself be human. Easier said than done, right?

So I'm gonna start with a reminder that this won't last forever. And I don't have to figure out the next 20 years of my career by dinnertime tonight.

I know what I should probably work on next. There's more pressure on this one, both internal and external, but oh well.

Step one: close Twitter and try to write some words. Don't expect them to be perfect. That's not what first drafts are for (at least for me).

Step two: try to stop comparing my productivity to what's "normal."

Step three: profit?

Looking back, this probably should have been a blog post, but ah well. Thanks for reading, and good luck to all of us struggling to get through the end of 2020, and to hopefully start making our way back to a more normal and sustainable life.