At the peak of my SSS posting ten-ish years ago, I held to a more-or-less strict three-times-per-week schedule. I had nothing else to do (well, very little else) and that schedule still almost managed to burn me out. That’s how I’m going to start a sort of apologia for a slow start to this blog.
Just to run down a few things that are sucking up my time:
- To start with the indulgent: this is summer break and I barely feel like I’ve taken a breather since the semester ended a month ago.
- I’m getting ready to take a little vacation next week which means…
- I’m planning lessons for summer term
- and also, here’s a buried lede if ever there was one: MOST of my creative energy is going into my various writing projects.
Two of those projects I’m just absolutely not talking about. One is under consideration with a publisher and the other is still in its first draft. Saying any more would be placing carts firmly before horses. I’m also back to running bi-weekly Dungeons and Dragons sessions which, though hardly serious work, is still work. I’m also still playing a mostly-weekly D&D session and I have taken it upon myself to write the ongoing log for said game. That log is clocking in at well over 250 pages, so it’s been a thing.
Slowly but surely, I am liberating my time. My lesson planning is nearly done, my writing projects continue apace, and that vacation will be here and gone before you can say “I need a vacation to recover from this vacation” amirite?
Atop all this, I have had a bit of a slog coming up with something to discuss other than my desire to discuss something, and that’s owing to the distinction between this blog and SSS. SSS was off-the-cuff, rude, and reckless. In the words of the character Faber from Fahrenheit 451, I was still preoccupied with [shoving] my ignorance in people’s faces. Since that time, a lot has happened, like me growing up and getting a PhD and also not necessarily wanting to spout off on every single topic that comes across my desk.
I feel in part that I have a heavier responsibility to research my arguments and to comment on topics in my wheelhouse, and to acknowledge just how much content that doesn’t describe. There is a point at which I can only parrot the more informed opinions of those around me, and it is at that same point that my own take on a topic is neither “hot” nor “spicy,” but simply “unwarranted.”
So patience it is then, patience in all things. Patience to learn, patience to grow, and patience applied between posts. In the meantime, I’m still reclaiming old SSS posts, one by one, to clean up and curate. Although I certainly cannot keep up that old three-per-week schedule and still meet my professional and creative obligations, I can draw a little inspiration from that 30-something straggler and find the pace that works for me.
Thanks for reading – and continuing to read!
Vytautas Malesh 