I'm trying to write my novel but all you do is play.

[raybear]

Today is One Of Those Days^TM. I feel it in my chest, all the emotions are right under my skin, I can hardly move, I want to crawl back into bed and assume the fetal position and not leave it all day.

Some of this is that I haven't written this week, and I'm starting to finally put it together that its not this feeling of paralysis that causes me to not-write. Its not-writing that causes the feeling of paralysis. Perhaps this doesn't make sense or seem like enough of a differentiation, but it was a groundbreaking realization when it happened.

Or maybe I just need to quit this freelance job. Or at least blow it off this month (and let them know as such). Because I'm able to successfully bargain with myself to get up and do other things, like go to the grocery store and get quarters for laundry and return books to the library, and in exchange for getting a good chunk of reading done, I would watch a movie with lunch. These are all useful things. Its not until I think about having to go to evanston that my minds starts to shut my body down to be uncooperative. The couple hundred bucks a month is useful, especially given how closely I live paycheck-to-paycheck, but still, even so, maybe its not worth the mental effects. I already have two jobs, having a third (that's only 12-15 hours a month but a pain to get to as its far away) is not worth the stress, especially given that I could probably just start showing up to my office job 15-30 minutes early each day and the extra time on my paycheck would be comparable. I guess I've figured out a solution! I just need to write that e-mail to the people in England who employ me, explaining that I won't make this month's deadline, and offering my resignation as well as my services to help find/train a replacement because hey, one more paycheck would be good. Also, for the most part, this job has been good for me and was my first freelance gig after quitting Lambda a few years ago, so I like to keep my work karma flowing in positive directions. I'll handle that part after the trip to the grocery store.

Approximately 3 years ago at this time I was going down the back steps to take the dog out in the early morning, I remember I was wearing a favorite hooded sweatshirt and my grandpa sandals and pajama bottoms and a full cup of coffee, and my foot slipped out completely from under me and I landed on my ass, with coffee all over me. I had a giant bruise on my right cheek for weeks, it seemed. Or maybe just because it took nearly 5 days for the bruise to rise to the surface. Anyway, this morning, I was wearing the same sandals, and slipped in the same way, but this time I had no mug of coffee, so my left arm reached out for the railing and I landed primarily on it, and now I have some strange bruising near my tricep, or more like a burn almost, from clinging to the rail and sliding down a few steps, catching all of my weight.

I need to get rid of these damn sandals.

Comments

[sebastian6.livejournal.com]

I've had a few of those days recently. Perhaps not exactly the same but at least similar in that my sensitivity to reality and emotions were somehow driven by my lack of creative output.

Last night I saw a band called Midlake. They are talented guys (here's an mp3 of my favorite song of theirs: Roscoe.mp3)
I stand there are watch and listen and feel equal parts inspiration (because a lot of this is the kind of music I want to be writing) and frustration (because I'm not really doing it and feel light years behind). So get caught in this event horizon of wanting to write a collection of songs that I know are trying to get out and feeling squashed and small because I'm just me without any proper drums or collaborators, etc.

But in the end it's just whining I suppose. We do what we can do. We bargain with ourselves, talk ourselves in and out of good and bad decisions and make our own creative destinies.

So I think I've decided to put out a song a week til my birthday on weeks that I'm not travelling. Having a quota isn't exactly the classiest process or any guarantee that what I put out isn't shit. But it's something. I can sit and mess with an idea for a song for 4 months and not finish it. It's the endgame that has me fucked up. I have songs that have 1 verse and nothing else that I've been sitting on for 2 years! On the one hand I want to make myself productive but on the other hand I don't want to put out shit for the sake of putting anything out.

So forgive my rambling. But sometimes the isolation of my new environment and my inability to close the creative deal is a bit like shell shock.
Hope you are fairing better.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

I think its a good goal, and there's very much a craft aspect to art-making and creativity, which is about producing a product over and over in order to learn a technique. Hence me writing everyday -- its not that brilliant words (and their syntax) are spilling out of me that frequently, its more about working the muscle to keep it in shape. I'm actually thinking about needing to up the ante a bit more, that in addition to writing something in my novel everyday, I need to do another writing exercise as well, to work on other skills and round out my vision.

Learning when to stamp something "done" is hard. I'm not so good at it either, I think maybe I just do it when I'm really sick of looking at it and don't think I can make it any better!! Which isn't perhaps the gold standard of which I should aspire.

thanks for the song! and never apologize for rambling about the creative process to me. or anything else, really!