I think the rough thing about brain fog is that frustration with yourself makes it feel like laziness.

I’ve spent two days sitting with my laptop, writing about 100-300 words an hour instead of my more typical 800-1000. I stare at my screen and my mind is blank. Why can’t you do this? my brain screams. You’ve accomplished this before! You’re slacking! You have nothing else to do today and you have deadlines to meet! What is wrong with you?!

I try to push past it, and my brain puts out garbage that I end up deleting anyway. I try to take a break and come back, and when I return to my laptop still feeling wrung out and useless I just get frustrated with the time I “wasted” taking a break.

Luckily I’ve been able to hack through it today, but it’s still such slow going. It’s so frustrating, and I don’t know what’s causing it. I get 8+ hours of sleep, I’ve been eating my meals, taking my meds, hydrating. I just want to perform at my peak! I know what my best is, and I want to be there!

Reading Maggie Stiefvater’s post about writing and brain fog made me feel better, though. I’m not alone. I’m doing everything that I can right now. Some days are bad brain days, but other ones are really good, and I can’t beat myself up every time I’m not at 100%.

All this to say that if you’re a creative with brain fog, you’re not alone and I support you and we can do this.