Wake Up Call

I just received a thump on the head from one of my fans, wondering what was up since I hadn't been blogging for some time--two months now.

Frankly, I'd fallen victim to the Information Age.

It's easier to read about than it is to do, and I'd been reading about journalling, reading about art, reading about and reading about and reading about. Joining Yahoo Groups devoted to this and that, joining in swaps and round robins and other group endeavors, and making copious lists of stuff to do Real Soon Now.

As soon as I had a chance.

As soon as I had time.

And the decos stacked up, and the ATC's were threatening to spill onto the floor, and the journals were getting dusty.

But there was all this e-mail, you see. And books I'd ordered, and books I'd been given, and books I'd won in various contests. And audiobooks to read, and movies to watch, and stuff and thing and stuff to consume.

And then it hit me that consumption is not production. And I needed to get with it and do what I was gonna do--or it wouldn't get done.

So I dropped about half my groups--the ones I only lurked in, the ones I wanted to be inspired by (but wasn't), the ones that ate up time and time scrolling through the chatter panning for gold.

I cleaned both studios so I could think--and more importantly, so I could run in and do in the corners of time that work so well for me. If you're only going to spend fifteen minutes a night and an hour on the weekend days, that's not a large investment at a whack--but you don't want to spend the whole allotment hunting for your embossing powder.

And the logjams are breaking up, a little. I've found that writing plans and leaving little notes for what I want to do works well. That way I can just duck into the paper studio, pull a project and my notes about what happens next, set my timer and go like thunder till the beeper beeps and it's time to go take care of something else.