2016 turns around. Maybe.

Here's a (totally not) surprising thing: the moment one part of my writing life starts going better, all of it goes better. Quite suddenly I want to WRITE ALL THE THINGS!

Because just as I think I'm seeing my way forward with the Essay of Doom, I've also been working on my MLA paper. This is something I've never before done, not in my entire professional life: worked on two substantive but completely unrelated writing projects all but simultaneously. Today is the third day in which I've spent at least a couple of hours plugging away at both, and feeling relatively happy and engrossed by both.

And then as I was putting away the dishes, I realized that I was writing a new blog post in my head--not the one I've had backed up for about a month, but an entirely new one.

Still: priorities. Right now I need to harness this momentum for the stuff I (more or less) get paid to do. But I'm looking forward to returning to substantive blogging soon.

Merry Christmas from my psychomachia

Apologies for my absence of late, but my writing life has not been getting better.

Oh, I got an extension on that essay, and I scrapped 70% of my existing draft to refocus on the parts that seemed to have the most potential. It's the right move, but it still feels like performing surgery, on my own brain, without anesthesia. I have some theories about why this particular essay has been so hard, but difficulty writing one thing tends to affect my ability to write anything else (which does not bode well for the MLA paper that I have yet to write, but that's another story).

So I'm not dead, nor have I abandoned this blog; I just don't have the head-space for any writing other than the writing that's ruining my life.

But hey! I'm in California for Christmas, so at least there are tamales and margaritas to cheer me up. Hope it's well with you, too. I'll be back when I can.

I may never see seven a.m. again

My final 9 a.m. class met today, and you'll be sorry to hear that I missed my very last opportunity to be late.

Out of forty-three 9 a.m. classes, I was truly late only once (by six minutes, thanks to an epic traffic disaster) and overslept once (by half an hour) but still made it in time. Otherwise I think I was technically late one other time (by a minute). But I was in fear of being late ALL THE TIME. I was also grumpy all the time, though perhaps that's a native condition.

Next semester I'm teaching three classes, but I'm back to my preferred late-afternoon/evening schedule. Praise God.

[Still in despair about that essay, though I've been logging lots of writing/revising time. More when I'm less self-hating.]