“What’s this about overwork bein’ tempting then?”
I stirred my coffee that I don’t usually drink much when my senior said this. Overwork doesn’t tempt people. Who likes overwork anyway? I just turned my head to look at the ceiling. I can’t hear what my senior is saying. When I roughly counted up the pile of work I had, I wondered if I could sleep tonight.
The biggest joy when I do work all at once is adrenaline. This explosive power literally makes my creativity “explode” suddenly. After not sleeping for ten days and worrying, I suddenly saw snow falling, something went “snap” in my head and I wrote like crazy. That day I wrote 6 stories in 5 hours, and they were much better than my usual diary-like writing.
My editing work also gets better quality when I do it all at once compared to when I do it lazily, and when I play games for 7 hours straight, I can reach the highest level. Oh, of course there are other things too. For example, marathon running (I haven’t been jogging lately) doesn’t improve just because you do it like that.
This time my overwork was for the independent publishing class. I was looking around for topics and things to write about, revising plans, when I saw the library announcement and “Eek!” A bunch of big bells rang in my head all at once. Time is short, November work schedule is piled up, plus there are personal promises scattered around – what do I do with all this?
What do I do? I just do it!
When you fall into the temptation of overwork, first you cut down on sleep. I reduced from 7 hours to 6 hours. If I wake up late, I sleep late by that much. Libraries usually open at 9, so if I leave around 8:30 it should be fine – I thought, and except for some small libraries (some open at 10), I covered 12 Jeonju city libraries and 9 municipal small libraries, plus provincial government and education office libraries, and university libraries.
“And then – the tsunami-like rising pain of writing.”
Running around like crazy during the day, writing at Wansan Library in the evening – I’m blank. And when my writing doesn’t flow, my personality gets seriously bad. I wasn’t that nice to begin with, but I don’t want to hear anything – people walking, monitor popup windows, even mouse clicking sounds. I need to calm my mind. Latin Lord’s Prayer, Jewish prayers, Protestant prayers, Buddhist mantras… Ah, none of it works! I know this damn overwork is the problem. So I know the root cause of the problem but I’m trying to just wipe away the symptoms showing on the outside. But time keeps flowing. What can I do, how can I finish writing all this?
Finally on the last day I was sitting blankly in Deokjin Park. I have plenty of stories to write. I already wrote some. In 2 weeks I filled 70-something pages struggling. But it’s not the direction I want. I could go with this. Actually it’s a bit of a waste of the amount I wrote. It is a waste, but the bells hit my brain again. I have to delete it all, this isn’t what I want to write, I have to delete it all. So I deleted everything. Both my brain and I are blank. Should I just give up on independent publishing? I can give up, right? Ah, I think I see Teacher Ahn (from Slam Dunk, Takehiko Inoue) in the distance at Deokjin Park.
“If you give up, it’s easy, Boy… don’t do it…”
Wait, that’s not the original comic dialogue…
And giving up is NEVER easy!
I’m silently cursing at the trees when two ladies avoid me and walk around. What does that matter? I went to a tea house, bought some tea and boiled 3 liters of water at once. While boiling 3 liters of tea, I thought. Let’s write until I pass out.
First write anything, then stop. Write anything, then stop. Write anything… Like in oil painting, draw the tree first, brush the sky a bit, stop for a moment then draw grass again, cover a squirrel on top… If I say it like this, my writing sounds like Bob Ross’s excellent painting skills (How’s that, writing is really easy, isn’t it?), but reality is like this. Write introduction, write any library story, this time write final conclusion, again any library story, and leak again… When the 3 liters of tea was all empty it was 11:10 PM, boil 3 more liters of water and write again. Boil tea, write again. Sleep a little. Wake up after 1 hour and write again. The tea water is bitter. Add more water… fell asleep while writing again. Even though I didn’t set an alarm, I woke up after only 40 minutes. It feels like a blade is stuck in every cell of my eyeballs. So what, then I can just live blind. Write again, delete unnecessary sentences…
I can’t move my fingers… I can’t open my eyes…
Then I’ll use my mouth!
I turned on the phone recorder, activated text conversion, then mumbled. “I inform you that I will write most about Wansan Library. This is because I spent the most time at Wansan Library… wait, actually I spent a lot of time at Chonbuk University Library too… revise the sentence, from this part… this year I spent the most time at Wansan Library…” I mumble like this. Morning sun rises. I close my eyes and mumble mumble, then press the convert button and quickly take a shower. About half an A4 page was completed. I get in the car and babble again. “Therefore we need to increase library budgets and expand books by more than double…”
Like this, in 22 hours overnight, I wrote about 81 pages. After writing, I cut it down again to 71 pages. It’s a miracle created by overwork.
But,
Nevertheless,
Looking at the published book again today, it’s a total mess. I did fill the content in a hurry but there’s too much repetition. There are many typos but bad sentences also show. I understand the content but the logic is completely messed up. It’s like a building built without blueprints, only making the outside look decent. I closed the book and held my head.
Overwork tempted me. And I fell for the temptation.
When you overwork, results do come out. Anyway, something does get made.
But why can’t I be satisfied?
Why? Because I was chased. I deceived myself, laid out thoughts, and filled up the amount.
Writing little by little, steadily would be better, but I deceived myself, tortured myself, ruined it myself.
And this writing too was completed today, chased by overwork (from work that pays for food). I started writing little by little from November 1st but kept stopping, and this confession of writing it all at once around the 20th is comfortable, but when I read it again someday, I’ll scold myself like this:
Overwork tempted me again.
Now I shouldn’t fall for it, but habits are really terrible.
What can I do, Dear me, Dear me!