Have you all been feeling neglected lately?
It's been a busy few months as I have said. And now we are sliding right from feast to famine. I am barely caught up and even with my bills. And so far behind in posts, here and in the other blogs. It is amazing to me how much I can fill my time when I am out of a relationship. I was thinking about that the other day.
I have been so bored and at loose ends in the last few years around mid winter. Alone time is great for the creativity but it is hard on the nerves after a few years. The more bored I become the more I want to start a blog. That is the reason for the 5 of them. That and there has to be a place for the me who writes to do her thing. I also have only been working for about 14-20 hours a week these last few winters so there is a lot of time to fill. Now I am used to having the Winter to create and hang out with people. This Winter will be very different from the last few.
With my new position in the department I am probably going to work 4 days solid,5 days if I am really lucky, and then there is the Winter driving to have to deal with. Time gets eaten up quickly just by the driving alone. I'm not sure how to balance Boyfriend and the things that I like to do because they have been a part of me since I was a kid.
It's all very awkward now. I feel like I don't get to see my boyfriend enough. And I feel like I don't get enough creative work done.
To be honest... it is also the time to hibernate. This year as much as any other year the Fall settled in and all I wanted to do was sleep. I still want to sleep a lot. But the snow is on the ground and around midnight there is as much light as one needs to feel awake and creative. My sleep schedule is all screwed up now.
Midnight is the time that I want to write. It has been for years. At midnight no one is awake to interfere with the writing. There is quiet and the characters voices are stronger. I did all my best writing in the dead of the night in middle and high school. And now I have another story. The characters want to wake me up at midnight to talk to me about what is going on.
Fiction is not like writing the short form essays that are essentially blog posts. There are no characters to talk to; no plots to keep straight. Blogging can be done any time of day. It is the fiction that keeps me up at night. It is the fiction that makes minced meat out of all of my relationships because there is definitely someone else involved in them.... many someones. And usually there is a choice, an ultimatum really... create or be alone.
In most relationships that I have had, especially the romantic ones, it has always come down to this. Either I spend everything that I have on the relationship or I am forced to focus only on the art/writing. Most men can not share the stage with the creative part of me. To be fair, the Creative Aspect doesn't really like to share either. I can get lost for days. In writing fiction I am lost for weeks and months. I can not begin to explain to a man that the gestational period is the worst. I withdraw and get distant. The characters are coming, the hints of a story are being followed. There are months where I don't write a word, I am learning about them, the setting, the backstories. And then I will write.
Of course since I am unpublished and the vast majority of my fiction gets tossed every time I move there is no physical evidence to the fact that anything creative has happened. So that presents an even bigger problem for the men. Why do it if it won't get published? Why do it if it is going to get pitched because I can't stay stable? Because it is who I am. I am an artist and a communicator. It is what I have done since I was 5. I do not know any other way to be. But it almost always leaves a guy feeling left out.
Add to that the injunction against talking about our adventures, even though he is still anonymous.... well that leaves me with very few options. And with very few words for the blogs. While we are navigating the complex world of interpersonal communications and relationship building I think things will be very slow here indeed. The holiday season is upon us and I am also trying to coax out some solstice appreciation from the housemates. So it will be doubly slow in the blogosphere the next few weeks.
I can only pray for snow days at this point.
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