June actually brought warm weather this year and this summer I have it all. No stressful office politics to contend with or suicidal thoughts due to my workload. Instead I have air conditionings during the hot days, views of Central Park, late mornings of sleeping in and free time to do as I please. Just yesterday I spent an hour mapping out things to do this summer in the city for free, oh lucky moi.
Shakespeare in the Park, Museum Mile festival, Summer Stage, free readings, the Harlem Book Fair, the African Arts Festival, Pride, museums and cheap eats with all those restaurant.com gift certificates I cash in with unused frequent flier miles that I’ll never use with United. The list is endless.
Then it dawned on me, with so much to do when will I have time to do it all and finish editing my novel? Sure I have at least sixty years ahead me, two lifetimes really, but I mentally cannot plan my life out further than three months at a time. Everyday I think about editing, rewrites and the such but then I do the dishes, run an errand, do “research” (I’m planning on adopting a deployed soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan) on the web, go work out in Central Park, then I’m hungry, perhaps I should clean the house, what can I donate to the needy, I just remembered I need to buy renters insurance, oops the phone is ringing, etc… You get the picture. By the time all is said and done its ten o’clock in the evening and now I want to watch a movie.
I’ve lost my A-game and I’m drowning!
The problem for me is that I find the editing process more taxing than the actually writing. Normally, after a session of writing I feel calm and rejuvenated but after several hours of reworking a chapter I’m exhausted. Four to five hours of drilling through a piece is painful. My back and ass hurts from sitting without moving. I haven’t eaten or drank very much because I don’t want any distractions. I loose days at a time without leaving the house, in other words I feel and look like shit. The only good thing about it is I feel accomplished at having ripped through the mess of a chapter and getting it tight. And yes I know all my hard work will produce the results I want in the end but I can’t think that far or I’ll lose half a day in daydreaming.
Perhaps what I’ve got is a classic case of procrastination because once I get my flow back I won’t be going to any free concerts or trekking to Brooklyn to flirt with cute guys. Instead I will be too entrenched in pages upon pages of my manuscript to leave the house. The only thing I can hope for is that my neurosis is so bad I finish my edits before the end of the summer. That way I can do one or two things before the sun leaves this part of the hemisphere and winter moves in.
Say What?!