Ceci N'est Pas une Blog Post

click to embiggen, but the clearly readable top text is the point
(Calvin & Hobbes is obvs drawn by Bill Watterson, not me)

The number of strategies I have in my pocket for when I can't sit down and pour out prose in a beautiful river continues to grow. One I learned about two years ago still fits extremely well with my personality: make a list. To-do lists are a daily part of my life (otherwise I forget everything), and incorporating them into creative work is useful, too. If you can't write a paragraph, you can write a list. I'm certain of it.

Like, for instance, today I can't write a blog post. And the reasons why fit conveniently into list form. This week's tasks:

• Get going on second story for workshop class 
• Write response to yesterday's workshop of first story 
• Put together facilitation for another student's story for next Monday 
• Read Foucault 
• Reread Lacan 
• Write detailed, specific summary (like 2,000+ words) of Caleb Williams, which I hated 
• Finish The Age of Wire and String, one of the most baffling books I've ever read (I see what he's up to, I'm pretty sure, but it's not a breezy read) 
• Write comprehensible response to The Age of Wire and String 
• Finish setting up new computer, a process which is alarmingly slow this time around 
• Set up new webcam 
• Do Friday's Yes video 

And within the next month or so:

• Complete and workshop second story 
• Get back to the last two stories of the secret project before the spirit of them leaves me 
• Write nine-page braided story (started, very curious to see where it goes) for Labor Day workshop homework (I don't think I can use it as the workshop story, for various reasons) 
• Prepare detailed presentation on "the theories of Rubin, Irigaray, Cixous, and Kristeva" as applied to The Piano, which I've seen, but not in years (note: I have never read three of those theorists) 
• Either throw large and fun St. Crispin's Day party, or ditch the idea 
• Read three or four more experimental books 
• Workshop other people's stories 
• Do more Yes videos 
• Live life, in there somewhere, like meals and vacuuming and sleep 

If you're not going AAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHH just from reading that, either I'm not doing the writerly work of engaging you especially well, or you're not actually imagining the work involved. My brain just keeps saying "I am so fucked."

I'm happy! I really am! Life is awesome and full of friends and good prose and bountiful ideas and joy! But still. Augh. I need to stop sleeping, maybe?