A Little Ink Blot

Looking at my current life schedule, I write all the time. Well, ok, not all my writing qualifies since so much of it is still stuck in my head. Then there is that whole genre of production that has almost no creativity to it but which takes us a couple of my hours every day -- small business accounting and taxes. Some of the projects I am working on are seeing their twentieth trip to my own editing desk -- business plan, marketing plan, financial projection, etc. Then there are the daily teaching plans, lessons and tests to go along with the time it takes to do the teaching.

But my current favorite creative expressions are the stories I tell my girls whenever they request a "brand new Land of Winkin-Blinkin-Andnod story." They generally talk me into two or three new stories a week. The requests always come when they are in a strange location (like the bathroom), or when they are delaying and distracting (like at bedtime), or when I am really accomplishing some necessary task (like dishes). These are the items that don't get recorded properly.

I don't have time to tell them the first time. Though I usually remember them well enough to repeat them upon request, I definitely don't have time to hide somewhere and get them down just the way I spoke them to that enraptured audience.

So a hundred and ten short stories, novellas and mutilated fairy tales are festering away just inside my writers skin. They saw the light of day once. Now they are writhing together in a darkened room, clamoring for release and permanent recording.

Maybe I need to get tough on myself. You know, stop frittering away real opportunities. Straighten my back and get through the grueling paperwork so I can find the time to express the creative stuff. Find a useful means of keeping a recording method always at hand (even when my hands are full of toilet paper or dish soap).

Last week I spent 20 some hours looking for computerized writing tools: a multimedia publishing journal, a customer relations and project managing program, a scheduling and organizing template, a type of mind-mapping software, and a program that pulls them all together to output them for me. They all have to work on not the latest MacOS X. Oh, and they have to be free.

I was counting on the idea that if I had a better tool it would be easier to organize, generate and accomplish. Instead, I found three free tools to find new things with which to waste even more time. And, though I did find both open source and shareware programs that will do all that I desire, every one of them requires some form of payment in order to keep using them after you take the time to make them useful for you (ugh!).

Do you know what it really comes down to? I just have to be tougher on myself. I really can write on anything (blank paper, note paper, computer programs--even Word as a last resort--tape recorders, email drafts, phone messages to myself, digital camera recordings). I just need to do it, and not wimp out and waste these precious creatives simmering just below my daily routine.