It’s not writer’s block. It’s whiplash.

Fun fact: you never really know how heavy a thing is until you lug it on foot 2.5 miles and take it on a bus commute. I have bonded with my guitar in real ways today. My knee, on the other hand, has opinions...

Speaking of today, I spent this particular morning kind of noodling around and looking at what projects I have upcoming. I'm good with that, because I need a palate cleanser. The last three months have seen me bouncing back and forth between projects, and the rest of 2011 looks to be shaping up the same way. I literally have a deadline every other week between now and mid-December.

Really, I love deadlines. Deadlines mean I'm doing something. It's just draining after a while to have to repeatedly defer work on one project because another has to be done first. I thrive on a certain amount of structure, but winding up in a position that make me feel framed in or walled up makes me dig in my heels.

One of my goals as I look toward 2012 is to carve out some more flexibility in my project schedule while still maintaining enough structure to keep me focused. I've got some ideas, but nothing's been nailed down yet.

I can promise you, though, that there will be deadlines. Tasty, lovely deadlines.

~*~

And now, so that this post isn't entirely about me going "Oh, my brain!" and "Guitars are heavy!" at you all, some links:

- A study has shown that spoilers don't ruin stories. I have mixed feelings about this. I think the design of the study is novel, and as someone who's been spoiled ahead of time for some things and still enjoyed them a great deal -- I'm looking at you, Torchwood and Harry Potter -- I don't think the data is necessarily wrong, per se. What I think the study misses, though, is that I enjoyed these things differently. The impact of the spoiled thing changed. I went in with a certain sort of anticipation, waiting to see how the spoiled thing would actually occur, and then reacting either with joy or sorrow (depending on what I'd hoped) when the spoiler becomes a confirmed thing. All things being equal, I think I'd still like my first experience of a story to be reasonably free of outside interference.

- I mentioned on Twitter this past Sunday that I went to see The Help with a social justice discussion group. The film has some pretty massive flaws, but I think it does at least try to offer some sense (albeit very muted, incomplete, and hopelessly sugar-coated) of the real inequities and terrors that existed under Jim Crow. Still, this Daily Kos essay is probably a better data point.

- Processed meats declared unsafe for human consumption. Mercury poisoning risks aside, I've never felt gladder to be pescetarian these days.

- Nicholas Cage: Vampire! Best. Celebrity rumor. Ever.

- Another favorite thing of the moment is Judging a Book by its Cover: How Women See Comic Books. I'm not attuned enough to the industry to know whether the whole "Comics are dying!" thing reflects reality, but the points made here about how women in comics are overtly sexualized in ways that would be offensive or absurd to a male audience if we did the same thing with men are good, and should be taken to heart. (I confess, I kind of think the Superman cover mock-up is kind of awesome. This almost certainly indicates a moral deficiency on my part.) Another great example of the overall phenomenon is this table of examples of fantasy armor -- with both male and female images being represented -- ranging from realistic through heroically idealized and into sexualized.

- The repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell became official yesterday. There's been a fair bit of well-deserved celebration, as well as gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members going public and talking about their experiences. This is all to the good, I think. However, as this post over at Dreamwidth points out, this change isn't ironclad, and there's still significant inequality (including benefit inequities and transgender soldiers still being excluded). This is, as they say, a battle. The war still rages.

- I really enjoyed this essay over at the New York Times about how government benefits are actually even more wide-ranging than many people think. Some benefits are practically invisible to the public that utilizes them. Also, I thought the breakdown in understanding along ideological lines (social conservatives often underestimate how many services they use, social liberals are more likely to disclose) was interesting. I think I want to read Mettler's book on the topic, The Submerged State. I'd like to be more knowledgeable on the topic.

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com