It feels like when I sit back and look at my goals for this year and how little work I’ve done to actually move towards them, I have a laundry list of extenuating circumstances to account for that. In January, New Years lead right into the day job summit in New York which lead right into Further Confusion 2016, making it all but impossible to establish a rhythm. In February, half of our team was overseas to get training for half the month, which left the newest and greenest of us to handle a really heavy caseload. In March, the progress I made getting back on track was derailed by Ryan’s trip to Japan and preparation for the burrow to get fumigated, which meant that I basically had to pack up, organize and clean up a LOT on my own. Last week I took a week off from the Patreon to try and finally catch up, but I ended up spending that entire week on cleaning. In addition to that, we had the highest caseload for our team in history last month, so work continues to be hectic.
As April begins, the burrow is at the tail end of its fumigation and I should be getting the all clear to head back later today. Tonight will be pretty much dedicated to moving back in and setting at least a few things into place as the work of unpacking everything begins. This week, hopefully, I can be a bit of a hermit; I’d like to divide my evenings between straightening up, paring down the things I don’t need any more and finally, finally getting into the writing habit I’ve been hoping to establish.
Obviously, the serial story for the Patreon will be getting most of my attention this week. I want to back-track with my notes, make sure that I’m really nailing down what each chapter and scene needs to do in order to advance the story, and update character notes so that I understand what motivates the characters, what their arcs actually are, and how those arcs are completed through the full measure of the story. I’m actually excited about this work, but I just need the time and focus to work on it.
In addition to that, there’s writing the story for a very generous friend who donated to the Clarion Write-A-Thon last year(!!), editing the first two chapters of the Patreon serial so they can go up elsewhere, editing the huge commission I finally draft-completed for another friend, and writing a short story for the next issue of Megamorphics. Somewhere in there, I’ll also want to come up with ideas for the People of Color Destroy Horror, People of Color Destroy Fantasy, and Black Power Superhero anthologies.
Here on the blogging front, I have a lot of ideas for future posts at the Writing Desk about Buddhism, managing anxiety, the thorny issue of processing offense and outrage in activism, comic book reviews and a lot more. I’d like to finish up the pair of Zootopia articles I’m writing for [adjective][species], work on a review of Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolfe for the Furry Canon project, organize the list of suggestions and writers who’ve taken them up and write/submit poetry for their Poetry Festival.
I’d like to eat in more often, train more often for the Overnight walk, and go through my wardrobe and closet to set aside the clothes, shoes and electronics that I can offer for donation. It’s all good work, and I am happy to be doing it, but it’s so much. A lot of my anxiety these days is wrapped up around being able to see a task through to completion, and that’s very difficult to manage when there are so many irons in the fire that feel time-sensitive.
But on days like these, I have to remind myself that I can only do one thing at a time. Right now, I’m writing to you (but mostly to myself) to talk about everything going on. After that, another item on my to-do list will be focused on until it’s done (or I need to take a break). After that, I’ll continue work on something else. And so forth, and so on, until I have a list of completed things under my belt.
I’m still learning how to see a project through after I’ve signed up for it, but I’m really hoping that paying attention to that this month will allow me to make progress on that front. Fingers crossed, and back to it.
From the Desk of Jakebe T. Rabbit 