Welcome

My drug of choice is writing––writing, art, reading, inspiration, books, creativity, process, craft, blogging, grammar, linguistics, and did I mention writing?

Friday, June 20, 2014

Ain't No Cure for the Summer School Blues

Cedric,
Please tell the new picture-finding intern
the following three things:
1- Her access to the communal doughnuts is
contingent on her doing a good job.
2-  Mark Harmon movie posters are NOT
considered a good job.
3- Then tell her about how the last intern was
never found.
Then laugh, and say that we just fired him,
and he left the building looking healthy.
But then get kind of serious and let your face
cloud over, look into the distance, and tell
her that he actually was never found.
P.S.- Why is the dog wearing sunglasses?
Seriously?
The next five weeks are starting to shape up, and I'm beginning to believe that one of the great life lessons (along with "actions speak louder than words" and "failure is awesome") is that no schedule is ever quite the same as it looks on paper.

Ever.

While it seems like a three and a half hour teaching gig three days a week shouldn't really cut that much into a full week of writing time, toss in an hour of commute time each day, an hour or so of thousand-yard-stare after teaching 4-9th graders who would rather be getting root canals than sitting in a class about study skills (each day they reproduce the Bane/Batman fight with my will to live playing the part of Batman's spinal column), and if you take into account the fact that the whole teaching gig is resting precariously on top of a preexisting schedule of housework and Contrarian care, the landscape changes considerably.

For the next five weeks here is how the world is likely to end up actually shaking out:
  • I'll work hard on the weekend to create some content for the week ahead. My success or failure may be determined by things like whether it is Supportive or Unsupportive girlfriend who is hanging out with me on Saturday.
  • Tuesday and Thursday are likely to be my days "off" from the blog. I know that writing on the weekends and not writing on weekdays will hurt my numbers a bit, but the need for cash monies is a cruel mistress. (My damnable body and it's incessant requirement of health insurance!) I will probably try to make my weekend posts more of the "slow burn" posts that get traffic over time. Hopefully I can at least whip up a "brunch" post, and if I'm doing great on writing ahead, I'll have something to show for it (especially possible on Tuesday), but if there exists a day in my schedule where the perfect storm combines to shatter my ambition, it is Tuesday and Thursday.
  • Friday Mailbox posts may have to go up Friday night or Saturday. (Today's, for example is just going to have to wait until tomorrow.) I usually start them on Thursday, and if you take that away, I often spend the whole day on Friday pounding them out. Once the East Coast U.S. starts going to bed for the night, it can really hurt my numbers to post so late, so I'll probably just post on Saturday in those cases.
  • There might be an awful lot of jazz hands in the middle of the week. Not that I think my readers will likely mind much. Some of the posts I think are my most lazy, tend to be my readers' favorites.
  • I may need to take a periodic day off here and there. I'm usually the only one who really cares if I don't write anything in a given day, but these six weeks are burning the candle pretty hot at both ends. A day off may end up being a necessity.
And of course you are all awesome for your patience. Perhaps some day, in the distant future, Writing About Writing will scrape enough money together to BE my day job, and things like this won't need to happen.

No comments:

Post a Comment