Peaches, Sinking; or, Becalmed in the Doldrums
Meet Peaches, the AlienCat (TM) who has adopted me, and who keeps me company (or keeps me on ignore in the proximity of my desk) while I spend countless hours on the 'puter. Or in the kitchen, as you can see by her happy nesting place a la sink:
She is also called TackleCat, because in spite of her lack of proper shoulders, she insists on body-slamming me like a linebacker whenever my hands are too long occupied on the keyboard or at the cutting board, and insufficiently involved in petting a passing cat. This of course gives rise to ditties which are Name Chants (and I have many of them) by which one can invoke Cat-ness:
TackleCat, TackleCat,
Kinda short and
Sorta fat.
TackleCat!
She doesn't mind. She's starting to answer to the new name. That, and PeachyQueen (for peachy-keen, of course) which has little to do with her *other* names, but we'll not get into that right now.
Sigh. Obviously, I'm living the proper Writerly Life, as staff to cats. There are others. But this is my intro du jour for the Bed Beast.
Now, as to Doldrums, and why I haven't been posting lately...
I have lately apologized to several correspondents for being fitful in my communications. They are new to my acquaintanceship and are just now learning what my long-time friends know about me: that if something is consuming my brain/attention, I am pretty monofocused on That Thing, and pretty much everything else falls by the wayside. Eventually I return to the correspondence (or the LJ posts, or the abandoned project, or the work commitment, or whathaveyou - usually), but essentially I do one or two things at a time, pretty much to the exclusion of all else. And when X is *really* consuming of my attention, that is the only thing I have brain-space for.
I also am known to suffer brain lock from competing priorities, and until I get such sorted out, I am pretty much dead in the water for the duration. Which brings me to the doldrums.
Nowadays we mostly use the word to mean one is depressed. "He was in the doldrums." But the term is actually a nautical one, referring to those degrees of latitude above and below the equator where winds were so fitful and meager that ships would lie becalmed in stagnant airs for days, even long weeks, at a time. (There you go, Aisley: Vocabulary R Us ;) And in that sense, I have been in the doldrums for the last week.
First I had some epiphanies about the creative process on the heels of these great conversations with
juice100 (see recent threads there; and if you are interestesd in your own creative process, I encourage you to friend her (quit screaming, juice; this is what you get for being brilliant and thought-ful) - her ruminations are trenchant and great conversation grist, at her LJ pages or elsewhere. Then I had some exciting idea exchanges about game design issues (which at their core were and are about storytelling structures) with
tashiro, who has brilliant game design sensibilities, and
doc_lemming, who brings up very pointed issues re rpgs. Then I got hit with some more freelance writing work with tight deadlines attached. The need for $$ competes with the need to be solely in novel-writing bubble-space and get on with my Production Writing. On one hand, I need to gear-shift into left-brain mode, on the other, need to stay in right-brain space for the Book, and on the third am ruminating about the profound storytelling and craft issues the above-noted convos brought up for me.
This is a classic combo guaranteed to bring on brain-lock for me. My sole cure for this, aside from plugging away at the $-connected deadline issues, is the refuge of computer games. This forces my conscious attention outward, allowing my hindbrain to grind gears and shift as needed to make sense of all the Stuff it is suddenly and chaotically dealing with. It is also a great way to procrastinate while I get over the subconscious bits of weirdness that contribute to my brain-lock overload. (Hey, I said it was a cure. I didn't say it was the best cure...)
So, the ship of my Writing Progress has lain becalmed in the Waters of Financial Necessity. The workaday effort of kedging my way back to where the fresh wind of creativity blows has been tedious and slow. It has been hampered by the grog of Computer Games, and enlived by the hornpipe jig of TackleCat & Co dancing on deck as I labor through the dog hours of the night. There is a riot going on below decks where the structure and framework of the very ship is being questioned. I'm ignoring it. It will sort itself out, eventually. That is the nature of this ship, though it may rebuild itself while we are under weigh. And while kedging, I haven't much time for other forays, cyberly or otherwise.
And now that I have nearly exhausted my sailing metaphors, Ahoy! That might be a semblence of a breeze flapping my sails. I must go a-loft to investigate. For I surely can't go a-low. There's a near-mutiny down there.
She is also called TackleCat, because in spite of her lack of proper shoulders, she insists on body-slamming me like a linebacker whenever my hands are too long occupied on the keyboard or at the cutting board, and insufficiently involved in petting a passing cat. This of course gives rise to ditties which are Name Chants (and I have many of them) by which one can invoke Cat-ness:
TackleCat, TackleCat,
Kinda short and
Sorta fat.
TackleCat!
She doesn't mind. She's starting to answer to the new name. That, and PeachyQueen (for peachy-keen, of course) which has little to do with her *other* names, but we'll not get into that right now.
Sigh. Obviously, I'm living the proper Writerly Life, as staff to cats. There are others. But this is my intro du jour for the Bed Beast.
Now, as to Doldrums, and why I haven't been posting lately...
I have lately apologized to several correspondents for being fitful in my communications. They are new to my acquaintanceship and are just now learning what my long-time friends know about me: that if something is consuming my brain/attention, I am pretty monofocused on That Thing, and pretty much everything else falls by the wayside. Eventually I return to the correspondence (or the LJ posts, or the abandoned project, or the work commitment, or whathaveyou - usually), but essentially I do one or two things at a time, pretty much to the exclusion of all else. And when X is *really* consuming of my attention, that is the only thing I have brain-space for.
I also am known to suffer brain lock from competing priorities, and until I get such sorted out, I am pretty much dead in the water for the duration. Which brings me to the doldrums.
Nowadays we mostly use the word to mean one is depressed. "He was in the doldrums." But the term is actually a nautical one, referring to those degrees of latitude above and below the equator where winds were so fitful and meager that ships would lie becalmed in stagnant airs for days, even long weeks, at a time. (There you go, Aisley: Vocabulary R Us ;) And in that sense, I have been in the doldrums for the last week.
First I had some epiphanies about the creative process on the heels of these great conversations with
juice100 (see recent threads there; and if you are interestesd in your own creative process, I encourage you to friend her (quit screaming, juice; this is what you get for being brilliant and thought-ful) - her ruminations are trenchant and great conversation grist, at her LJ pages or elsewhere. Then I had some exciting idea exchanges about game design issues (which at their core were and are about storytelling structures) with
tashiro, who has brilliant game design sensibilities, and
doc_lemming, who brings up very pointed issues re rpgs. Then I got hit with some more freelance writing work with tight deadlines attached. The need for $$ competes with the need to be solely in novel-writing bubble-space and get on with my Production Writing. On one hand, I need to gear-shift into left-brain mode, on the other, need to stay in right-brain space for the Book, and on the third am ruminating about the profound storytelling and craft issues the above-noted convos brought up for me.
This is a classic combo guaranteed to bring on brain-lock for me. My sole cure for this, aside from plugging away at the $-connected deadline issues, is the refuge of computer games. This forces my conscious attention outward, allowing my hindbrain to grind gears and shift as needed to make sense of all the Stuff it is suddenly and chaotically dealing with. It is also a great way to procrastinate while I get over the subconscious bits of weirdness that contribute to my brain-lock overload. (Hey, I said it was a cure. I didn't say it was the best cure...)
So, the ship of my Writing Progress has lain becalmed in the Waters of Financial Necessity. The workaday effort of kedging my way back to where the fresh wind of creativity blows has been tedious and slow. It has been hampered by the grog of Computer Games, and enlived by the hornpipe jig of TackleCat & Co dancing on deck as I labor through the dog hours of the night. There is a riot going on below decks where the structure and framework of the very ship is being questioned. I'm ignoring it. It will sort itself out, eventually. That is the nature of this ship, though it may rebuild itself while we are under weigh. And while kedging, I haven't much time for other forays, cyberly or otherwise.
And now that I have nearly exhausted my sailing metaphors, Ahoy! That might be a semblence of a breeze flapping my sails. I must go a-loft to investigate. For I surely can't go a-low. There's a near-mutiny down there.