Firefighting and giving yourself a break

The infamous Biddy, a writer friend I first met online a couple of years ago, posted on a board last week that she was stressed because all she seemed to be doing at work was firefighting. The word rang true because things have been so busy over the last six or so weeks that's what I've been doing too. Planning seems to have gone out of the window and because my job is international anyway, it would be hard to stick to standard work hours.

The problem comes when work and life begin to blend together and you can't seem to separate the two. Hearing a colleague on the telephone yesterday saying in a distressed voice, 'I don't need this!'
I felt awful. It was a sticky situation. There was nothing which could be done at that time to solve it. I said, 'Just don't worry for now. The sun is shining. Have a great bank holiday and we can all be calm and sort it out Tuesday.'
'Oh but you know me,' he said. 'I can just never switch off.'
And he's right. He can't.

And I'm worried I'm getting to that stage too.

Where does this leave writing?

Well, I don't have any time to do it. I'm too tired when I'm home in the evenings (if I'm home), and at the weekends I want to do other stuff that doesn't involve sitting in front of a computer which I'm doing all day at work anyway.

So once I've finished with edits on THE RAKE I think I'm going to allow myself the summer off - no more self-imposed writing deadlines which I'll then feel guilty about missing - and start a new project in the autumn...