This summer has been difficult for me as a writer because, by necessity, I have had to be other focused.  As I have mentioned in several past posts, that whole work-family-sleep thing really gets in the way.  One would think that as you get older, as your children get married and move away, as the partying gives way to quiet evenings, as you physically begin the process of slowing, the amount of time you have for personal pursuits would increase.

Not so.  More than ever I feel like Indiana Jones being chased by the huge stone ball in the Temple of Doom.  I run and run and run, but the ball is always gaining on me.  Visits by friends or relatives must be prefaced by home improvement.   My granddaughter is coming to visit so we need to paint and decorate a room for her.   Oh, and let’s get a dresser from Goodwill and restore it while we’re at it.

As if in answer to my need for more time, Doug Lance at efictionmag.com has blogged about tools he uses to help with productivity and monitor his web presence in social media.  I set up Google Reader in my Google+ account and downloaded TweetDeck as suggested, but I haven’t had time to set them up, much less monitor them.  What I need is a way to sleep and write at the same time.

Pause for a moment of shameless promotion:
My short story, “Another Twenty-Five Minutes”, will be included in the August edition of eFiction Magazine.   Check out eFiction Magazine.  Great stories by indie authors.  And the subscription is FREE!
And now back to the post…

So when does it end?  When does the period of calm arrive when I’ll be able to concentrate on polishing my short stories, pushing out the sequels to my eBook, Any Tomorrow: The Calling, and creating new works?  Although it sometimes feels like it, I know that I’m not alone in this quandary.   Anyone who’s got a day job and a family faces many of the same issues.

After considering this for awhile, I’m not sure there is an answer.  Maybe there’s just an understanding.  It could be that there are creators and consumers.  Creators write the stories and consumers read them.  The problem is that consumers consume at their leisure, whereas creators bear the onus of creating within the window of inspiration.  Creators never know when that window will close.  It may stay open for a few minutes or days.  It may close for a while and then open again.  And, in its nascent stages, it is often not possible to know whether the inspiration will result in something great and lasting, the next great novel, or just another ‘trunk book’.

It is in that moment of inspiration the danger lies.  To be pulled away prematurely by the cares and concerns of the day, by the routine and mundane, chances to kill the spark and lose forever what might have been something truly great.  So we creators must persevere in our quest to capture our inspiration and transform it into words that will convey to the consumer our understanding.  That’s the bottom line if there is one ― creators have to capture inspiration when it strikes in the form that it assumes whenever or wherever it may happen, then mold it into something fully formed that will convey the creator’s understanding of it to the reader.

With that in mind I will post this and move on to whatever I have to do next.  Hopefully, the next time inspiration seizes me, I’ll be ready.  I hope you’ll be ready also.

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© Copyright 2011 by Kevin Fraleigh.