In which I torture a geological metaphor.

[bodlon]

I ran out of deadlines last night.

My last final is done. May's installment of Hold Something is sent. The novella's in edits, so I haven't got it to bang around on. The other, somewhat random market I discovered earlier this month has its thing in hand. My dance card is emptier than it has been since October.

Twenty-four hours into this I am already going a little bit crazy, which is a sign that my plan to take it easy for a few days so I can regroup and plan. But wow, when the only pressing responsibilities I have in a day are watching Glee and returning my library books? To say I'm climbing the walls barely even covers it.

This morning, I got up at 4 and drank tea. I listened to podcasts. I cooked. Not sure what I'll do tomorrow morning. I'm allowed to write. I probably will, seeing as I have some deadline-less things that I've been working on in the background here and there for the past couple of months. There are plenty of other things that got pushed aside for a couple of months, too -- studies related to my spiritual practice, for example -- that I'm ready to get back into soon.

The thing about creativity is that the well metaphor is actually pretty good. You dig a well with practice and effort and boom, there is stuff you can draw up and use and be nourished by. But, you know, wells don't exist in a vacuum. They're part of a system. My metaphorical creative well is situated in the larger, also metaphorical aquifer of my life.

"Filling the well" isn't about pouring stuff down that hole. It's about taking in things that'll soak in and filter though so that there's something to draw up later. It's about being mindful of my present carrying capacity (something I can be terrible at gauging), and making sure I'm not doing anything that results in...well, stuff like this.

It's also really interesting to see how intensely I'm craving distraction right now. I'm not really an idle television watcher -- if I'm not actively paying attention I tend to prefer for it to be off -- but I've been channel surfing a little.

So yeah. It goes without saying that I'm anxiously watching my mailbox for that copy of Dragon Age 2 that's on its way to me in the post, having finally been released by an intensely helpful Canadian friend who procured and then withheld it (meaning I couldn't justify going out and getting it) while it would have been a harmful distraction.

Oh sweet, engaging distraction. Come to daddy.

~*~

- I am in love with this shop and in danger of ending up with about half of its stock in black, men's XL.

- I was wondering why I felt a little more equal than usual today. Secretary of State Clinton said some lovely things to commemorate the occasion. Of course, the USMC blocked the site, Prop 8 and DOMA are still on the books, and people like me can still be fired for existing in most states. But hey! Goldfish!

- Two labor studies professors in my state narrowly missed having their careers destroyed by Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart, if you're unfamiliar, uses clever editing tricks to distort people's words, passes the new recordings off as legitimate, and feeds them into the extreme right-wing media.

- American chain bookstores Borders and B&N are all squeamish about an androgynous model's naked torso. I am appalled. I mean, gosh! It's not like I can't walk through any magazine section in those same stores and find images equally or more titillating or anything.

- School board dismantles libraries by secret vote. Gee, I wonder why they had to do this in secret. I am not any great lover of Asimov, but if anybody wants to hang out this weekend and, oh, I don't know, start the Foundation or something...?

- Here, please enjoy ten simple and sensible things you can do to support the authors you love. And then, when you're done, have ten more extra special suggestions. Really any of those except for #7 will do. Yes.

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