An interesting week in a string of weird weeks that make me think time is turning a page all on its own. For a few months, I haven’t been escaping into fiction. Instead, I’ve been reading books on writing. Marking interesting sentences with a sticky note, I then typing out those little nuggets. At some point, I’ll refer back to these notes. Either I’ll keep them or recycle them. In the last couple of weeks, I haven’t even read about writing.
For the last couple of months, I’ve been organizing and purging class materials I’ve made. The more I organize, the more I decide what is worth keeping and digitizing and what goes in the recycle bin. There are times when I hold that item a moment, consider when I made it, who used it, and the value of keeping it, even if it only lives in a tub in the garage and under a tab on my website.
Just when I thought the group of writers with the anthology were making progress, things have stalled. Again. It makes me think whether a project like this is worth doing. I’ve decided that it depends on who else is involved. If writers don’t adhere to deadlines, choose not to respond to communications, can offer little in the way of feedback or marketing activities, then I’m not interested. It makes me think about why I offered this project to begin with, and how I can bring it to completion, if only for my own sense of “done”.
The little 61-day art challenge that two friends and I are doing makes me think of all the ways we can interpret a prompt. I’m a one-trick pony. I write a micro-flash fiction story and sketch an item in the corner of my index card that has something to do with the tale where I’ve squeezed 300 words onto a 2×3 inch card. I was excited to have a “book-making party” when we’re done, thinking that getting together and making a zine or book of some sort with our index cards would be fun. One friend said she’s tossing her responses to the prompts, isn’t interested in doing a book, and only plans to do the prompts that are fun. It made me think that my idea of fun and excitement likely isn’t shared by the people around me.
It’s been years since I was at the ocean. I used to love to sit on the beach and stare at the water. It was my favorite way to empty my head of thoughts and gain clarity on life. I have no plans to head to the coast, but it makes me think that since I haven’t pulled up a chair at a large body of water, that the universe is helping me to empty my head of thoughts about the classroom materials, about the anthology, about this neat little challenge that I’m so happy to be doing. It’s good to organize and let go of what is no longer needed. It’s good to accept how things are and use that to make decisions for the future. And it’s good to know that probably no one else on the planet will be as excited about something that I am. And all of that is okay. It just makes me think…
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