The Q Continuum

There's exciting news coming. Watch this space for a major announcement in the next few days...

Just when you think you've stopped popping up in unusual places, you run across yourself again.

I had no idea.

Creativity and frustration go hand in hand for me. Possibly for most creative types. I've always heard "You have to suffer to write" and I've heard from a number of writers that those are not empty words. I also know that the creative process is a painful one, sometimes violent, and almost always has a significant impact on the creator. Right now, though, I'm finding myself longing for that struggle, that anguish. I'm getting so many ideas swimming through my head, and I just don't have the time to exorcise those demons from my psyche and pour them into something beautiful.

Then comes good old writer's block. Once you get some time to yourself where you can really devote all your energies to the creative mindset, and the garage is empty. That happened to me this past weekend. My wife was working a school competition on Saturday morning, and I had several hours to myself. I intended to crank up the music studio and get moving on a couple of new project ideas I've been developing in the little grey cells. So, I got myself organized, and went to it. That's when one of my two favorite water metaphors came into play - I went to the well but the well was dry, or you can lead a horse to water but can't make him drink. Either way, my outcome was the same. Once I was ready to be creative, the raw material just wasn't there.

Maybe I'm just out of practice when it comes to scheduling the creative process. Many writers will tell aspiring authors to schedule a time every day to do nothing but write. It's awkward at first, but after several weeks, your essence is in the habit of working the creative flow during that time. In my regular music days, I spent at least part of every day with my music, creating new or just playing the old. That, plus the weekly band rehearsals really kept my music groove thumping.

I was hoping to re-establish my creative schedule during the time I was out of work. *buzz* Didn't happen. Now that I'm working, and working a LOT, I'm finding precious little time to keep up with life's requirements away from work, much less the luxurious time to myself to be creative. Yes, yes, yes, now it boils down to the adage of "making the time" instead of "finding the time." I'd like to put a sock into whoever came up with that phrase. Yeah, there's an element of truth to it, but it's almost a grail in itself. Simple, yes. Practical, well...

The credit I have to give myself at this point is that, for better or worse, I have been able to maintain some semblance of regularity in writing in the blog. Maybe that will be enough to get the creativity bandwagon moving again. When it does kick into high gear, though, you'd better watch out!

For those of you who don't know, I'm a white boy. White white white white white. I sunburn at the drop of a hat. I scare off ghosts when I wear shorts. I make my wife, who thought she was the whitest person on the planet, look tan. White.

So when I went outside yesterday to work on digging out a new planting bed, why on earth didn't I think to put on any sunblock? I was out working, in very nice weather mind you, for a couple of hours before I came in and applied solar protection, then went out and dug and cleaned and cleared and edged and planted and lined for a few hours more. By the time we finished and the sun was going down, I was positively glowing. Not from a sense of accomplishment about the outstanding job I did, but from my radioactive skin.

Today was going to be about the planting bed. Instead, I wrote some words about my skin that's red.