I Want to Create!

Humans are such desirous creatures. And so creative. Maybe the two are related.

It’s 2 degrees and snowing, and I’ve taken two days off from work to get some creative stuff done.  Haven’t, though, really.  With these kinds of vacations, I tend to collapse for the first couple of days, just relaxing, and so if the vacation is only a couple of days long, it’s over before I get any real work done. I really need emotional space, generally, to get creative work done, and I don’t generally get that in my day-to-day life.  The kids don’t stop needing to be picked up from school and taken to basketball and play practice and, you know, eating.

First-world problems, I know.  But it remains.

There’s so much I want to do!  I’ve written two children’s books, and I’m starting to work on the illustrations.  One is a picture book called ZoLilly and the Feeling of Impending Doom, and the other is an alphabet book called A Blush, a Giggle, a Smack. It’s so much fun!  I’ve always loved art. I took every art class I could, in addition to writing classes, as I was growing up.  So there’s that.

My narrator partner P. J. Morgan and I have just come out with an audio version of my short story collection How to Be a Man. And so there’s promotional kinds of things to do for that.  That takes a lot of creativity not to come across as an ass.

I’m finishing up the design of the next book that’s coming out in January. It’s historical fiction set in 1885 Iowa and Kansas City called Earth’s Imagined Corners.  All I need to finish is the Dear Reader letter and I can send it out for reviews.

I’ve really been into the chef aspect of cooking lately, and so I’ve been trying all kinds of things. I made cheddar and mozzarella for the first time, and I’ve been watching a lot of Anthony Bourdain.

I have this blog, but I’ve been thinking a lot about a couple of other blogs.  One I have created but haven’t launched. It’s called Family Confessional and it’ll be a place where people can anonymously send in their confessions about family. I love this idea! The idea came from Julia Fierro’s Parenting Confessional. But I haven’t had the chance to launch it yet.

And there’s the blog that I created a while back and then ran out of steam. It’s called Native Home of Hope and it’s about contemporary writers of the American West. I still believe in it very strongly, but it became prohibitive to post every day. My goals were too ambitious. But I’ve been toying with the idea of bringing it back as a less dynamic but no less valuable resource for contemporary writers of the west. I could do video interviews every once in a while, and I could put up the list of contemporary writers of the American West (that was rejected by Wikipedia).

Oh, and, you know, the YA novel I’m supposed to be finishing. And my on-again off-again photo Project 365.  And, you know, work and stuff. 

But I want to do all these things!  I want to be able to create nonstop! I want, I want, I want!  But that’s a good thing. Dream big.