Tempus Fuggit

I've had a little bit of trouble keeping up with my writing lately. It's not a cause for concern, and it's a decidedly minor thing to consider within the sea of troubles we've seen this unfortunate year. I mention it here in passing, if only because my commitment to daily blogging requires this acknowledgement: that sometimes the task of maintaining a daily schedule is more daunting than it is at other times.

My proposed book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) remains in its familiar district of Purgatory. I think (or at least hope) that it will move forward, but its path is not yet clear, certainly not yet assured. That lack of forward motion affects my outlook. I still very much believe in the book, but I haven't felt sufficient motivation to complete its remaining unfinished chapters; it's been almost two months since I've moved a chapter from incomplete to finished draft. 

I like the work itself, both the process and the result. I was looking at the beginning of my Merle Haggard chapter this week; it's pretty good, I think, and I may post that here as a glimpse of the work in progress. I need to finish it. I need to finish the other chapters as well. A little outside validation (particularly validation from a publisher with checkbook in hand) would be welcome, but the responsibility of seeing the work through is mine and mine alone. I've gotta get back to work on it, and I will.

My writing energy is at a little bit of an ebb right now, and what energy I retain goes into the blog. It would make sense to take a break from the blog and concentrate on the book, or even on other projects, but I'm not willing to do that. I know me too well. If I start slacking on my (self-imposed) responsibility to post a blog every day, it will snowball. One day off will become two. Three. A week. A month. More. The focus provided by that once-a-day commitment forces me to keep writing. That's good in the long run, and will ultimately feed my ability to write other stuff in addition to this li'l ol' thing. 

Frankly, the radio show is an even bigger drain on my mojo, and there's no way in hell I'm giving up the radio show. When Dana and I were talking on the phone Tuesday night, putting together the playlist for this coming Sunday, we both said how much this current recording-at-home gimmick seems never-ending. We now feel like we go straight from one week's show to another, with no real down time in between. Before the quarantine scene, I used to catch up on my writing on Wednesdays (my day off from work), maybe listen to some of the new music to be considered for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, and then on Sunday mornings I'd figure out what tracks to bring to the studio for live airplay that night. Now, time to preview new music is almost non-existent; I try to quickly scan as much as I can before Dana calls at 7 pm on Tuesday, but I never feel caught up, never have a true grip on the mass of tracks that accumulate. We hammer out a playlist, I assemble our chosen songs, and then on Wednesday--you know, the day when I used to write?--I record back announcements and ship the whole digital package back to Dana for processing. 

(I also record my weekly Greatest Record Ever Made! YouTube videos on Wednesdays, but that actually saves me a little bit of writing time, since Thursday's blog is just an announcement of that week's video.)

All of this is meant as observation and self-examination, not complaint. I have bigger problems in real life, and I'm sure you do, too. I'm trying to figure out how to budget my time and inspiration, and how to do it in such a way that it remains fun. It's not worth doing if it's not fun. The lack of any sense of fun was why I quit freelancing fourteen years ago, and I don't regret that at all. What I do now is indeed still fun. But it can also be exhausting. 

Still: not so exhausting that I'm willing to give up any of it. The daily blog. The weekly radio show. The weekly video. A dream of writing a book. A commitment to writing...something. I wrote ten short stories in 2019, and sold five of them. I have not written any fiction at all this year. I have some ideas, including some longer-form ideas. And I have time. Tempus fuggit. I salute the demands of the clock with a single finger. And then it's back to work.

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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1)will contain 165 essays about 165 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).