Catching a Full Breath

I both love and hate that quiet clear space between one project and the next. There's a sense of aimless scrabble and "but but but but I should be BUSY" and a "shut up and say 'ahhhhhh,'" from my hindbrain, who really wants to enjoy this already.

*inhales*

Last weekend our choir had our Spring concert, and one of my primary foci was breath. Taking deep enough breaths, only breathing at the right times. It sounds clunky and amateurish if you breath mid-phrase. You can't hold a note if you don't have enough air in the first place, if you use it all up too soon.

Creative energy feels like breath. This clear space between big writing ideas feels like the inhale, and I want to fill it with fascinating ideas, clarity of purpose, new ways of thinking about writing, clarity in my surroundings and just... rest. Less sleep and more getting out into the woods, which we did two weekends ago, hiking to a magnificent waterfall. Reading Riverwalking had reminded me how much I need Forest in my life. Hoping to do more of that this season.

 I'm not *quite* done with the tinkering on the novel (Purpose/Moriakt's Apiquai). I've got trimming to do, and had some thoughts today on how to deal with the tonal sidetracking that's happening mid-book. But momentum is carrying me forward, despite part of me thinking I should wait for feedback after shipping it off May 1 (on deadline!) to [exceedingly wonderful feedback opportunity]. 

I've caught up around the house a bit (we're no longer in danger of death by dustbunny), and caught up on my tracking. I'd been kinda ovaries-to-the-wall (with the occasional depressive slump and two out-of-town-trips) for two months. Which feels marvelously productive in one area, but there's all this other stuff that hasn't gotten done. 

It has been awhile since I have given myself any thinking-on-paper cogitating time, which this brain needs to SORT THINGS THROUGH. Ghods and jackals, I admire people who can do that on the fly, in their heads, and retain any of it. I frequently don't retain it even when I DO write it down, which is ... well, partly explains the whole Pheonix nature of my existence, I suppose.

Anyway. Things I'd like to sort through: 

-- writing skills and the work I am and am not doing regularly to improve

-- some of the reading I've been doing, and how those writers succeeded at what they were doing, and how some of their choices didn't work for me but clearly did for others and why

-- a general "whew, here I am, here's where I want to be, am I on the right track and if not what do I need to change."

-- ways I can breathe fresh energy into my life on a more regular basis than once every three months.

*exhales, inhales* 

That's a start.