Crazy Talk

It's Sunday people. And I am hopelessy working away on none of the stuff I really want to be doing. Like, who would voluntarily want to get papercuts from folding paper all morning? And that god forsaken paper has sapped all the moisture out of my dishpan hands. (Do people even still get those?)

Not to say I haven't been productive because I totally have but I can't remember the last time I wrote anything for myself. It's all book reviews, editing, manuscript reviews, teaching and then the actual real job work. So sure, I've been writing, I've been doing creative stuff, helping others with their own projects, guiding them on the path to literary stardom (oh lord, did I actually just say that?) but me, I feel as though my own creativity may have dried up and blown away with the gusts that came up yesterday. Floating around like those little balls of fluff so common these days. Ever notice how big those fluffs get? Big as cotton balls; you know, the kind you buy in the store in the overstuffed package to clean nail polish off your finger nails (or in my case the walls) or to put antiseptic on your child's scrapes and cuts.

But creativity is not a little ball of fluff is it? It's much more powerful than that. But when it seems like it disappears, disintegrated, it can feel like it will never return. It will though. It always does. Maybe it's about prioritizing. Problem is my priorities are already lined up in a nice little row with all these deadlines attached to them and though many are being accomplished, it seems the row keeps getting longer.

I do this to myself, you know. I take on more and more in the hopes of...hell, I don't know what I hope to accomplish by taking on more and more work. To gently prod myself that much closer to neurosis? Not that it's a bad thing. I think ever writer needs to get a little neurotic at times. Let the insanity fly. How else will be get stuff done? That's where the creativity comes from. For me at least. From that little pocket in my mind where all the crazies hide and only once in awhile will they scratch their way out.

Maybe I need medication. I have a bottle of wine in the cupboard.