Thinking with Therapist (2/x+1)

"How much would you like to write a day?" Therapist asked.

Ordinarily, this wouldn't be a hugely productive discussion. Anyone can quit smoking every day; I can set goals every day too. Getting them to stick is a bit more challenging. Some people need to sit down and write for, say, an hour each day; I can do that easily. But that day, I actually came up with something:

"At least two hours," I said. "But writing multiple things."

I have project ADD. I have a one-slot inventory; when I pick up one thing, I drop everything else. Before scrapbooking Andalusada, there was its original post at AH, the write-by-post Ixbiliada, which gave way to an attempt to update the AH Tropes Wiki. Before that, there was the Ravenhammer game, which I'd desperately like to pick up again some time. Contemporary with possibly all three of those, there was Occultation. Before Occultation was the Wolfpack-verse, before that there was the Omen of the Nine campaign that spun off a dead blog or two, contemporary with that was Asabiyya 2000, before which was the previous iteration of Occultation in the form of Entropic Ground... and so forth back to the beginning, when I wrote myself the inspired mediocrity that was Kasath-Lar in seventh grade.

It's why I've neglected this blog for weeks on end while updating Andalusada every hour on the hour: it has intertia, and I had project ADD. It's why I've abandoned so many forums over the years: I'm serially monogamous to each, before dropping it like for the newest on my list.

It's not a disability, because I can do it. I used to... contemporary with Andalusada. I remember that "I used to..." series, because it was fun to write; I remember looking forward to expanding on the next point of it the next day. (And from the most venal standpoint I love, it was also the only three days in the last month to generate 15+ hits/day.) I can sit down and write a sonnet with no more inspiration than "Fuck, I haven't written a sonnet in forever."

I need to learn to divide my efforts, and I'd like to learn to write on command. (I think I said, "I'd like to be able to write a serial novel." I know that I name-dropped Charles Dickens and Jonathan Coulton, he of the song-a-week-for-a-year, as something to aspire towards.) I know that I can write well, and I know I can write focused, but if I can't write consistently I am, to paraphrase Paul, a noisy gong or a blogging cymbal.

And that's problematic, because not all of the writing that's important to me is creative. Some of it's needed to maintain relationships. Some of it's, you know, love letters.

"What gets in the way of writing like that?" Therapist asked (or words to that effect.) And, having started to do this yesterday, I think I'll use that prompt the same way today: as an excuse to leave you, dear reader, hanging until I blog tomorrow.