I'm not typically one for brevity, but as I feel my way through my post-employment/striking out on my own world, I find that the longer posts I'd planned, or even the longer discussions I'd hoped to have with others in real life, are somehow usurped by my own monkey-mind that swirls and swirls to such a degree that keeping things brief, short, and to the point seems to be all I can manage at the moment. Not brilliant for a would-be novelist, although I have entertained the thought of using this short-term inability to speak at length to my advantage so I can dash off an achingly spare short story. Something I'm never able to do with when my usual over-sharing faculties are in good form.
But I digress. A good sign?!?!
As I weigh my options, I find I'm swinging rather drastically between several different "wants":
- Wanting to do nothing other than read & write all day (for really, I've missed these things for two long years and I'm eager to dive wholeheartedly back in)
- Wanting to contribute in a far more significant way to the ongoing discussion about eBooks, eReaders, and digital publishing issues. I've worked in brand strategy & online marketing for fifteen years & along with nearly five years of bookish blogging and a lifetime of observing the publishing industry from many sides, I should be able to do so intelligently. The catch? I've spent the past two years focused on client deliverables & crazy 80+ hour work weeks so I've not been part of the conversation.
- Wanting to get those two years back.
- Wanting to not feel so behind. As if I've been under a proverbial rock and am only now picking up where I left off. It's a terrible feeling. I have to trust that all I've learned in the interim has adequately prepared me for whatever is to come, though I may not see it just yet.
And so, in this wanting and flailing and swinging about, I'm not getting anything done. I have hatched ambitious projects, only to set them aside. I have conjured fantastic roundtable plans & literary salon at my loft type plans & various let's save LA's libraries plans. Just today I began a faint outline of a Celebrate Small Presses Month plan. None have come to fruition. So far. And I'm learning to be okay with that. For now.
But the ideas are finally flowing after a long spell of being so pressed for time and so focused on work that there was no room...not even for new thoughts to percolate, let alone the space and time to let them bloom into something tangible, completed.
For now, I'll take percolating. Quite soon, however, I'm going to need to see results. But hey, if I can knock out Bolano's 2666 in a few weeks with all the other things I'm trying to do at the moment, I'm confident I'll hit my stride soon. Oh so soon.
