If publishing is something I have struggled to do in the past (and boy that's putting it mildly), then it's no surprise that a publishing practice is going to push me out of my comfort zone. It should. Indeed, it's meant to. When circumstances last summer demanded that I push outside my comfort zone, in all areas of my life, things began rapidly to improve. Not a coincidence.
(Of course, sometimes I felt like my whole identity was dissolving. Not a coincidence, either.)
At the same time, a sustainable practice requires a careful attention to energy flow. In simple terms, if you treat your energy carelessly, you'll burn yourself out.
From that perspective, here's what I notice about my daily writing practice:
I haven't been having any problems getting the drafting done. This week, I finished my 5000 z.d. words by Tuesday. Regarding my daily publishing practice, I haven't missed a day yet, and won't, but it's taking more energy than it should. It's burning me out. I can feel it.
So the move has to be to improving that situation. In short, I need to practice publishing while expending less energy to do so. To that end, it's been a goal of mine for weeks to establish some sort of queuing system. I can't always be flying by the seat of my pants.
A few days ago it occurred to me: maybe I'm having some sort of resistance to that idea. Because not only have I not done any queuing, I haven't gotten anywhere close to doing it.
Remember when I said that the stuck energy of clutter increases over time because the simple awareness of, "Shit, I haven't dealt with that yet," pulls more energy into the stuckness? If I'm aiming to practice a change in my approach to publishing, by not doing so, I am allowing the idea to develop into a kind of mental clutter. On top of that, because I am spending so much effort just getting my daily publishing done, I am also not moving forward with other important projects, which means that they too are piling up.
Therefore every day that I don't move forward on a technique I believe I should be practicing, I am doubly decreasing my potential effectiveness. A certain portion of my daily energy is getting sucked into the mental clutter I'm carrying with me around these various projects. And the ultimate process of dealing with these projects becomes harder because the more energy that gets stuck in those piles, the more energy required to break through the logjam.
And thus the energy leak I'm dealing with becomes clear.