After my brief and guilty love affair with Sense8, I have fallen into the arms of the OA. This is a better category of distraction, if only moderately. It is not a book. I have not picked up a book in pleasure since the summer when I curled up around a copy of Amped. I used to act like I don’t know why, but that isn’t possible anymore. I know the reasons. I remain stunningly disappointed in the quality of material I am producing, which is to say none. Moreover I know that the reasons for not writing stem from being torn between the fear of not being able to write the story I actually want to tell and writing stuff that I continue to be provided contracts for and not be paid for.
I think it all comes back to the archive. I used to keep a public archive of ideas–sharing what I thought and imagined for those who were in need of such things. It kept me creative and active. I built characters and plots and relationships. Short scenarios welled up in my mind to burst forth unto the internet every Wednesday night. It died, as all things do. I did not kill it. I allowed it to pass away gracefully.
Now, when I am most frazzled from the hectic start of the semester and parenting and loads of responsibility and choices needing to be made, I find myself thinking about that archive and what it meant. I find myself thinking about the simpler times when I did put butt in chair for an hour at least each day. I wish for those times. I know I have the power to bring them back. I just don’t understand why I haven’t.