This week, I've been absorbed in putting the finishing touches on a new batch of chaps that we will be releasing in a flurry the next couple of weeks, things that have been on the burner since December and are just now making it into print. I always say I will eventually be caught up, but it never happens, so I won't jinx myself this time and just continue on (I think as soon as I think I am right on shedule, I get complacent and self-indulgent, and shit just doesn't get done.)
I have also vowed, even in the midst of chapbook mayhem and pre-AWP preparations, that I won't let my own stuff get pushed to the side, which I often do. (it's sort of a time thing, if I have 4 hours in which to work on press-related things a day and one hour to work on my own art or writing, that extra hour often gets eaten up by other fires that need to get put out.) It works, but after a while I start to get cagey and slightly resentful that I never seem to have enough time to work on my own stuff. The past two weeks, I've been pretty good at getting that hour (sometimes more) out of the way at the beginning of the day instead of the end of it, ie. writing first thing in the morning (as opposed to right before I go to bed), trying to spend my first hour at the studio devoted to something of mine. Already, I have managed to finish and submit the JF poems, almost finished the narrative projet, as well as all sorts of art-related things (like these nautial inspired collages still in progress, which I am hoping to combine with the fledgeling mermaid series maybe..)
I've been feeling a little more centered, calmer, and this seems to remove the temptation that often strikes to do nothing when faced with too much to do. ie, if I have three tasks in front of me that are pressing to get done, I find myself paralyzed at which to start with and overwhelmed and end up watching cat videos YouTube and looking at Facebook for two hours, during which I probably could have been well on the way to finishing all three.
