6 November 2004

This morning, after getting bagels and a few more groceries, I sat down and made a to don't list. I moved things from my to do list to other weeks' to do lists. This is why I have weekly lists in the first place instead of one big list: to remind myself of things I don't have to do right now. But lately I've had a hard time figuring out what would be an appropriate amount of stuff to do in one week, and I've forgotten the main thing: it's okay for the list to be wrong.

So if I put "Singing Them Back" on the list for two weeks from now, and instead I get a bee in my bonnet about it and finish it this afternoon, it's okay. I can always take it off a different list and move the story I didn't finish this week to next week's list. I've been moving stuff I didn't finish to the next week's list anyway. Just in massive stressful clumps: "Look at the seven short stories I didn't finish this week! I guess I'll have to write them all next week!" Bad brain, no biscuit. But we're trying to fix that tendency right now.

It'll probably work out so that I move a few more items onto the next week's list at a time and end up having to do this again, and then later again. But remembering to do it now is good.

So this afternoon I'm not going to finish seven short stories. I'm going to work on one. If that doesn't go well, I'll work on a different one. But we'll just start with the rock sprite story and see how far that gets. If I finish it and still feel like writing new material, I'll open up Zodiac House. If I still feel like writing but not necessarily new stuff, I'll do revisions on Thermionic Night some more. But otherwise maybe not. The list has been pruned. It is now a veritable topiary among lists. Perhaps in the shape of a seal with a ball in its nose. Who can tell how it'll grow in.

Errrr...right, then. Back to work with me.