So Much Time, So Hard to Do

The meteorological calendar says I've still got three weeks, but as far as I'm concerned, summer starts today.  School is out, the bulk of my private lessons have ended for the time being, and I have the whole summer ahead of me to do creative work.  As I envisioned this moment from the safety and sanity of the school year, it looked like a paradise, and endless expanse of creative beauty just waiting for me to enjoy it.

As I stand here before it, however, it looks like a great gaping chasm, an endless expanse of nothing, upon which I'm going to flounder in my attempts to impose some sort of order and meaning.

My wife and I have visited the beautiful island of Kaua'i twice now, and as I think about this summer, I'm reminded of those trips.  From the safety and security of my office on the mainland, Kaua'i is an idyllic setting, peaceful, beautiful, charming.

Flying to Kaua'i is sheer terror.  If you fly out on a cloudless day, you can look down and see that there is NOTHING below you except vast quantities of water.  On the six-and-a-half hour trip from the mainland to Kaua'i, nearly five-and-a-half hours of that flight involve looking down at salt water and nothing else.  At such a time, it's difficult to think that you're actually heading for a safe haven of land in the middle of this unwelcoming ocean.

I know how to create -- I know how to compose and arrange, to write and edit.  The problem is that all that creating doesn't work in a vacuum: it needs some semblance of structure, however trivial.  My everyday job in the media center at school provides that basic structure -- most days, I need to leave home between 10:45 and 11:00 to make it to school in time for my job to start.  That means I have no more than three hours of a morning in which to do all my creative pursuits.  Minimal structure, but it does the job.

Summer, however, is a different beast.  I get up (usually in the 7 o'clock hour, thanks to my feline creative consultants), and I go to bed usually in the 11 o'clock hour (at night, not morning, thankfully).  Beyond that, there's no structure.

In response, I find that I try to overcompensate during the summer.  My school-year job gives me just enough structure: I've got three hours to work.  The frightening abyss of summer causes me to take that basic, simple structure and try to impose my will on it: Okay, I'll write my morning pages until 8, then I'll compose for an hour and a half.  I'll take a bathroom break and get some breakfast at 9:30, then back to work at 9:45, composing until 10:58.  A two minute bathroom break, then ...  It starts to get a bit ridiculous.

The other problem that arises is the fact that since I'm not following someone else's schedule, I tend to be less than rigid with my creative time.  Someone calls up and wants to do something, and I'm more than a little likely to put my creative work aside to go with them.  No way could I do that with a "real" job.

So how will I organize my time this summer to ensure I get done what I want?

• Set work hours at the start of each week and stick to them.  They may be different hours each day, but during those hours, my time is my own, belonging to me and whatever creative project I feel the need to work on.
• Don't over-schedule. It's enough to say, "My creative time today is from 9:00 until noon, then again from two until six.  Don't overthink it, and don't micromanage it.
• Set to-do lists.  Once I've got my creative time set aside, I'll come up with a simple (and relatively short) to-do list of what I want to get done on a given day or during a given work session.  Too much on my list and it's overwhelming, so keep it to a couple of small, finite things.
• Be kind to myself.  The nature of creativity is that it doesn't always go the way we think it will.  As long as I show up to the desk when I say I will and make every attempt to do what I said I would, I won't stress the results.  A ton of finished pieces and a pretty finished draft of a novel would be great, but my goal is to sit here every day and work -- no more, no less.  I leave the results to a power greater than me.

Even then, it's a tricky process.  I'm sure that at some point this summer, I'll find myself adrift in a sea of I-don't-wanna-do-nuthin'.  I'll discover new and creative ways to waste time.  I'll become addicted to a video game for a whole week.  Despite all of that, I know that I'll do my best to stay on task, to live the creative life I know I'm supposed to live, and to do the creative work I know needs doing.