A Little Caught Up in the Rest of My Life

Trying to do a little planning ahead--like when and how and where we're going to move after graduating in the spring, and how we're going to afford it. And then, jobs? More school? No jobs? Plans need to be made, but it's not the most pleasant mental place for me. A lot of the future is contingent on a producing certain amount of creative output in the next few months, but when I'm anxious about the future, its difficult to be creative in the present. So I've been trying to work with that a bit today. I have a feeling I will have to bump up my meditation time for the next few months to keep on an even keel emotionally.

Despite this, there are quite a few exciting things to look forward to when I'm feeling not-neurotic about them. In in early January I'm going to the Key West Literary Seminar. Because the theme is "New Voices," they were very generous with financial support, enabling me to go to my first of event of this type. I'll be in this workshop with Trevor Corson. I've read the book we are supposed to read in preparation, but have not even begun the article I need to write...in fact I don't even know what to write about, but I'm sure as the moment approaches I will come up with something!

The next week I'm going to AWP, where I'm moderating a panel called "Why Ballet is Good for Football Players: How Screenwriting Informs Fiction and Poetry Writing" (we're on the schedule here).

After the conference, I will stay the weekend to visit my half-brother, his wife and their new baby, and then take a bus upstate to visit my friend Christa and her new husband. It's a small town I think, and she promises hikes and a fireplace...I'm very much looking forward to this!

Then in February, I will be the closest to unemployed I have been for a while, and it will be time to get down and dirty for the remaining months of spring, and to see what it might be like to be a "real" writer--of the sort who just gets up and writes and not much else. Right now I have this fall-back, when I consider the day, I think, "Hmm, I didn't write much, but I did go to work, and class, and got my homework done." No more. There will be just one criterion for a successful day. Easier, but harder.

There are some balls in the air for later, but I'll save these, and try to do what's first, first.