Unplanned

While making the effort to plan my posts for the month and build motivation for a month’s worth of writing, I wrote a calendar with a theme for each day of the week in hopes it would generate thoughts throughout the week so when I sat down and write, I would have pre-composed fragments and some cleverly worded sentence filed in my memory, next to the brilliant insults that come to mind a few minutes too late to deliver.

Lately I have been on time with the insults, but just not in the right situation to say all my mind conceives.

I have not had any trouble coming up with essays this month in my attempt to blog daily for the month; however, the creative juices have not followed my plan at all. So much has been going on, that inspiration follows each day based on experiences and observations from the day. Several of the topics about which I most want to write have documents in draft, but my thoughts are not clear enough that I am ready to post them. I am doing some reading and research before I finalize my thoughts.

One of the books I am reading is about writing, and listening to the Selected Shorts podcast on a regular basis has made me want to work on the stories I have had in outline for some twenty years. The final product, at least as final as they have reached to date, do not meet my standard for sharing, so they remain in draft. Perhaps sometime in the reasonably close future I will sit down with my editor's pen and revise to the point that I am ready to share.

The fact that I have been able to come up with topics on a daily basis rather than rely on some predestined theme offers some promise that over the holidays when I have some time off from work, I will be able to focus on creative activity rather than catching up with all the extra busyness of things neglected while focusing on work. With proper planning on my part the things neglected will be the creative endeavors I continually put off and say I will attend to on breaks from work.

I began writing this blog six years ago, when I was first in the job I once again have. At that time, it inspired creativity and I sought some outlet and decided to try out what was then a relatively new format. (The geek in me has always wanted to do what is new.) Now, upon returning to this job, the inspiration that came with it originally has returned with even more urgency.

Much as with the writing, my daily schedule does not often go according to plan and I often recall the lines from Robert Burns:

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Robert Burns, To a Mouse (Poem, November, 1785)

So as much as I want to take my upcoming break to work on the short stories I have begun over the last 20+ years, I think twice about making such a plan. Just like the daily plan for the blog this month has not stayed true to form, even for a single day, I will just let the days progress as they will. My tendency to over-plan every moment of my day gets in the way of life. I cannot resist the attempt to plan every waking minute of my work days and my days off, but I can also learn to go with the flow and enjoy even those things that are unplanned.