Stop pretending. Art is hard!

Today I did all the easily crossed-off things and none of the hard ones, but it's Final Friday and I'm cutting all the slack. It's the Friday of my final week at Dayjob, where I did things for money; they are still paying me, for a while, but I'm no longer doing their things. Parts of today I felt as though doing ANY things had just ground to a halt. But then the sun was fantastic, I got outdoors, and the day crept onward.

I continue to believe, because it is repeatedly confirmed, that on these days when my creativity seems frozen solid, stuff keeps happening below the surface. And tomorrow I have 6 hours on a bus to read and snack and (maybe) get the creation process flowing again.

Did I mention that you can load your own documents onto those e-book things? I have a kindle paperweight that I got for free, and I'm putting all my typed manuscript chunks in it to read on the bus. (You can't edit on them; you can only read. So it's kind of perfect.)

In other tech news, I have no idea why the white backgrounds on these blog posts were not showing up in some browsers. Now we know! I've taken away Filth's lovely rust in hopes of not burning your eyes. But here is his post with all the lovely photos:  http://extinct-flightless.blogspot.com/2013/03/losing-my-electrons.html

Writing is easy and hard. 2014 is my year to dig deep. Habitually, I have cut things short, broken off scenes, stopped at the bottom of a page, trailed off in mid-sentence when I figured the person I was talking to already had the point. In 2014, I plan  to push on, keep going, knock down walls, and finish with finesse.

incipient trajectory 3 & some notes on this blog

Farewells have begun at my Nearly Former Day Job, where a lovely person (who also most welcomely told me not to be a stranger) has supported my finding that early morning is strangely good braintime. He gets some of his best ideas in the shower. Prescription: long leisurely bathing. So much for my plan to become increasingly disheveled in non-employment! Now envisioning Sagmeisteresque scrawlings in soap on tile wall.

We are still mulling EFAC-on-Twitter-ish notions. Watch this space. (THIS "space.") Social media frustrate me by not letting one filter out retweets/shares when desired. Imagine saying "hi, how are you?" to a friend on the sidewalk and having them silently present you with a stack of novelty greeting cards and newspaper clippings before they reply. All those links may be pleasant and/or useful, but they can also feel like the angry cloud of playing-card men at the end of Alice. I am leaving the Place Of Working For Others; I must learn to be selfish with (more of) my time.

At any rate, expect bloggerel to appear "here" at a somewhat higher rate. In the current arrangement of the Collective, any posts not marked filth or diana-smiles are entirely the fault of the DJH (flightless). It is true that EFAC began as a collective of one, but I'm very fortunate in having dear, supportive, playful, creative friends, and these two have become full-fledged Collectivists. Many other folks also collaborated on the Extinct Curiosities and may pop up here---who can say? I love to showcase the cool things my friends have done with and without me, and we do have a little list of links (not visible in the mobile version, apparently, but on stabile it's over there at the right).

Comments should turn up unmoderated unless the post is older than a fortnight, in which case I have to approve each comment individually, which I will. Say hello! Link us to your art! Object strenuously to my unexamined preconceptions!

High Line Tracks, by filth