Have you ever seen, probably on television, one of those booths where the contestant gets in and then money blows all around while the person tries to grab as much cash as possible? That is how it feels inside my head a good bit of the time, with ideas and thoughts instead of money.
Lately, I have not been able to grab much.
There’s just too much in there.
No time to purge with morning pages.
Under the heading of IDEAS-GENERAL, there’s the new beginning for godlight, the work in submissions. There’s the draft beginning for Seldom Untitled, the work — allegedly — in progress, although as for progress…ahem, mumblemutter.
Under IDEAS-SCHOOL we find the ideas for Digital Illustration class, where I am currently supposed to produce a series of zoo pictograms (icons). There are ideas for Typography (which class I may be the first ever to love). There are the ideas for Drawing II.
Then we have RESPONSIBILITIES. Under this heading find laundry, menu planning, shopping (what all did I forget last time and what all will I forget next time?) and prescriptions (human and pet) and cooking and cleaning. Haha! if you could see my kitchen floor, you would be as appalled as I am ashamed; I should be in there mopping instead of in here blogging about how I should be mopping. Also, maintaining relationships (phone calls, e-mails). Feeding people and critters. Cages, litter boxes.
I could really use a wife maid.
Up until about two weeks ago, I found myself thinking, in a recurrent way if not obsessively, that maybe I was done writing. I’d told my one good story, and I had no particular burning drive to get on with telling another. It occurred to me briefly that maybe, just as I only have seven hundred to twelve hundred good words in me per day, I might perhaps only have so much creativity in me per day. Maybe, perhaps, I’m using it all up on school projects.
After all, I did have a burning drive to finish that last DI project:
But no burn when it came to godlight or Seldom. No particular guilt over lack of burn, either — which was the most disturbing aspect. Can a burning desire just wink out like that? If it does go, does it ever come back?
What can I do to make it come back?
Even if I figure that out, should I make it come back? Because I really do not have time.
I thought it was me, my inner whiner. This is all well and good for kids living at home and men with wives. I AM the home, and I AM the wife! And: Nobody else spends this much time doing school work. I’m only taking four classes! WTF?
Last week my hard drive self-destructed and the youngest spawn fell ill, so on top of everything else, there was alla that there to deal with. The inner whiner was on a rip, let me tell you.
Then I heard one of the young people, a second-year student say almost exactly the same thing about how much out-of-class time we spend on school work, and I felt so relieved. It’s not just me! There really is an exorbitant amount of homework in the graphic design program. So. I could just quit, right?
Quit and do what? Sit around having plenty of time to write but no desire to do it?
Well I could walk the dogs, there’s that. And spend more time trying to not think of all the things I’m not supposed to eat, which is always a worthy occupation.
For now, my writing goal is to finish typing in the changes to godlight‘s beginning. When that is done, I’ll submit both visions* for critique and see what they say. While that’s pending I can go back to work on Seldom in my — ahem, spare — time.
Meanwhile I’ll keep thrashing out the school projects unless or until it becomes more pain than pleasure. For instance, I needed an idea for a surrealist drawing yesterday, and the girls in the basement are simply not cooperating.