Behind the curve. Out-of-whack. Unbalanced.
This is how I’ve been feeling lately. I’ve had issues – issues surrounding free time, issues around the job, issues concerning one late computer – and all sorts of hopes and goals (lets not call them resolutions) for the new year.
But everything feels as slippery and elusive as trying to chase a cat on a greased floor wearing roller skates.
A writer friend noted how many blog posts I produced last year and asked, by comparison, how much time I dedicated to writing for myself. At first my inclination was to feel insulted; clearly I had spent twice as much time writing my own things as I did for the blogosphere.
And then the python of doubt slithered up from the pit of my stomach and gently cut off circulation to my defense mechanisms. In that hazy fog of semi-consciousness I realized that whether or not it was true that I had been neglecting my own work in the past I needed to double-down going forward.
I remember reading some financial advice once that suggested “paying yourself first” with each paycheck, essentially setting aside some savings before even paying bills, to say nothing of extracurricular spending. I realized – am realizing – that I need to apply that same philosophy to my work, that I need to deposit some time in the bank of creative writing before I start spending willy-nilly on the internet.
Ah, but the internet is so much fun, so hard to ignore its siren call!
So, here I am.
Earlier this week I was able to carve out a few hours for my own writing and even managed to get myself invited to participate in a fairly large project for National Poetry Month in April. It wasn’t a lot of writing but it was enough to not feel guilty about making the rounds and hitting some bookmarks that I haven’t touched in weeks.
Including this here blog-o-roonie.
This is my seventh year of blogging. Perhaps I’m feeling some strange itch that needs to get worked out. Rethink what I want to say, who I want to reach, and why. With my creative writing I know that, I understand it better, there isn’t this same question. Here, the exercise of keeping my fingers moving and communicating with the outside world, I have many questions.
The plan is… status quo. For the time being I will continue to add book reviews over at the excelsior file, and my monthly contribution to Guys Lit Wire. Aside from the writing I still have some duties as a Cybils judge again, so that’ll take some time, and I fully expect that these here fomagrams will again appear with greater frequency down the road.
For what it’s worth, I miss being here.
I assume this isn’t the post you were referring to in your comment, so I’ll definitely come back to check it out. But I wanted to say that I’m sort of there with you on the whole status quo plan. I hate the idea of regimenting my personal blog posts the way I have to regiment my other blogging activity, but I’m considering that, too…
no, this is an alternate post. i pulled the other one before it went out… see, things are so muddled in my thinking i have multiple posts circling these thoughts!
sometimes i wonder how future scholars will ever sort out these fractured on-line lives we lead. i’m not so grand as to think i’m worthy a biography, but what a digital nightmare its going to be for the future to sort through the tangled web we have woven of words.
I hear you. And I sympathize with the alternate post, too. I’m always, ALWAYS getting ideas for posts and then going, Nah, nobody’s going to want to read that, and then I just don’t post at all.