I am starting to see a pattern. Fall of 2017 was almost as bad. In my day job, I teach software development and databases. This fall, one of my courses, the technology changed while I was teaching it. All of my preparations, my examples and so forth were invalid. This really cut into my writing time.
As I struggle to get back to my passions, I find a barrier. It is as though the busy beavers of my day-to-day have built a dam of daily responsibilities and mundane tasks. The creative flow, now blocked, built up behind it, building pressure at the same time.
Now I have to carefully disassemble the dam, piece by piece, to let the pressure out in a controlled manner until a healthy balance has been restored. My fear, though, is that I will pull out some important structural member, allowing a flash flood of creativity that displaces my daily tasks and the ability to pay bills they provide.
Hopefully, I will be able to get back into the swing of things and create some stuff. I also need to get back to promoting my novel, Cordell’s Rebellion.
One of my former students has asked if she can provide cover art for my next novel. She is a good illustrator, so I am excited to see what she comes up with. As a matter of propriety, I had to insist that I pay her for the work (she wanted to give it as a gift) because she is a former student. I will also make sure that she gets proper credit for the cover art.
The other side of that is the imperative to complete the second novel. The first draft is about four-fifths done. I need to finish the first draft, diagram the crap out of it to look for structural flaws, do all the grammar and spelling checks, and complete a few more drafts. That shouldn’t take too many more lifetimes. If I really crack down, it should be easy. I just need to do it. I also need to keep up with daily responsibilities.
I’ve always heard it said that good writers don’t find time to write, they make time to write. That is going to have to be my way of doing things. I have to shoehorn time to write and be generally creative. If I don’t the rest of life will take it over.