. Spinning .

Oh goody, I’ve having creative shower thoughts again. My blogging habits have changed over the span of Spinning, and I remember when just about everything written here was conceived and born of water drops. Then it seems, I fell into an odd routine of random sleep patterns and who knew when I was awake, and hopefully so when inspiration struck.

But this morning I had one. Another strange thought while shampooing, and two more related:

1. (Related) I’d like to get back in the habit, since it seems an awful waste of time to just spend water on washing without the mind actively doing something as well.

2. (Related) I have not yet gotten down the method of this form of thinking, which is to stop as quickly as possible and run out immediately to the computer, regardless of clothing or lack thereof, so I temporarily had forgotten what the great inspirational message in fact was.

3. (Main thought) My tub is beginning once again to show immediate signs of copper pipes by evidence of a blue cast which does, fortunately, come off quickly with cleanser. But this: Is not only drinking water borne through these pipes but also being awash in it daily harmful or helpful? Is PVC better? Will we only find out the truth twenty years from now?

Mind traffic, that is. Creative flow.

While my last couple of entries reflect my focus on reality and what’s outside my own little world, it has put a definite crimp in my creative writing. I had to get some of these thoughts out though, because they were bogging me down with depressing helplessness and guilt over what began to feel like a selfish waste of time and effort on more personal pursuits.

Maybe though, there is a need for getting away from it a bit, especially when personal opinions aren’t worth diddly-squat in aiding the world situation. And then too, maybe some of us aren’t effective in the frontlines. Maybe, our place is in the weblogging virtual world of Bob Hope’s USO during war time.

We all serve some purpose in life, and all the different parts make up the whole.

Yes, the publishing field has been a tough one to play for a long time, and is getting worse. But there are ways around it, blogging and personal websites to publish one’s works, and now this, from Sabrina Tavernise in this morning’s New York Times: Authors, Get Out There and Break a Leg

Doubly doomed, I am; I cannot sing nor play a note.

So many writers complain of stalls, writer’s block, staring at a blank monitor, etc. that I am so very grateful that I feel inspired almost every moment of every day. If I could sit in one little room with my computer, a fridge, stove (or just cookies) and potty chair I’d be happily busy for many years. I’m barely getting basics done; have cut back classes to only one per semester, am sadly deficient as a housekeeper and almost but not quite yet willing to allow my husband his offer of turning his underwear inside-out and so I do the laundry, and framing customers are luckily loyal enough to wait a month or longer than the used-to-be-quoted two week turnaround time.

But other things have overpowered even my rampant creative spirit lately, some very personal and I must hold them above my own self-serving need to write. Others, as noted in the post below, so very important and yet beyond my knowledge or abilities to help without a great input of time and effort, only leave me near the point of tears of frustration and self doubt.

I asked myself here a few weeks ago, how can poetry and politics mix. I do of course understand that political issues and world issues can and should very skillfully and effectively use poetry and all forms of literature to help the causes, but it’s not something I can handle with my limits of time and intelligence, nor a fragile hold on sanity.

And so I stick to what little I am capable of, and maybe in a much smaller way define the human spirit and address its nature on an individual level. I apologize for my lack of ability, and hope to grow beyond the very limitation of my own mind.

It has been a couple weeks since I put down the story I’ve been working on. I considered that it had been edited, rewritten, polished and practically error-free up to just within the last couple of pages, the last scene. It is not.

I blue penciled my way through last weekend, and have put any further free time consigned to writing towards reading, playing (IF) and critique of others’ pieces for our upcoming workshop. What better thing to do than to throw in my own story at this point and view it with the same critical eye as the others. And so, a silly thirteen page story is being rewritten yet again.

How could I have let this go by?
Oh, there’s a much better way of saying this, I’m sure.
That doesn’t sound right, hmmm.
Shoot, that wouldn’t work, it doesn’t follow suit.

And on, and on. But it’s done more quickly now, the eye scans more easily past passages that do, in fact, sound right. The flaws show up that much more obviously, when settled in among some better phrasing. Perhaps, with any luck at all, I’ll reach the end, and only go through it once or twice more.