So I love this place, I love being here, I love the people. But most of the week, and particularly yesterday, I've been wrapped up in anxiety. I thought, you know, I was just anxious about the week, but last night I literally rolled restlessly around bed for like three hours before I fell asleep. And I'm like, what in the world is wrong with me? I'm only here for a week, and I want to enjoy it, but instead I'm riddled with anxiety that keeps turning my stomach and making this stupid place where I messed up something in my back hurt like crazy.
I've already written several poems that I really like and feel like could become a part of my thesis. It's good for me to be here. I had a great meeting with my mentor, who is willing to help me start doing a lot of work to prepare for my thesis when she already has two other students that are in their thesis semester.
The only answer I can come to is that I'm anxious, because I don't want the week to be over. I'm so attached to how I feel here, how much work I can get done, that I'm almost, in a way, terrified to go back home and fall back in to the same monotony. I've talked to my group here, and they all agree that it's nearly impossible to write at home. Everyone has jobs, a spouse, or a kid, or all three, and being at home and knowing all the things you need to get done can just be severely stifling to the creative process.
My mentor suggested that we find a day, a certain time, a set amount of time, and a place to go--at least once a month, if not once a week. I've been struggling to think of somewhere I can go near home that will allow me to feel how I feel here. I really wish that I lived closer to people I know that write too, but I don't, so it's all going to depend on the place. Since I've worn my computer out, I'll need somewhere that I can plug it in, because it dies too fast. Because I have to have my computer. Pen and paper don't work for me anymore. I can't write fast enough to keep up with my thought process, and I also can't read my own handwriting most of the time.
Which sucks, because I'd like somewhere outside. Not that it's even warm enough to be outside right now. I don't know. I'm just a ball of nervous, anxious energy. This could drive someone crazy. I'm going to have to find somewhere I can disappear to for a whole day and not be bothered.
Anyway, besides my continuous freak-out, the rest of the week has gone really well. Like I've said already, it's fun being in the social environment of writers. We heard Tom Franklin read last night, and that was really great. I also got to talk to my old mentor, Blas, some, and that was very nice. Then I came back to my room and churned out a poem to the prompt Carrie assigned us, and it's not perfect by any means, but I'm like, wow, I actually like that. I could go back to that and make it something. I told Carrie about how difficult I find it to work at home, so she's decided that I'll turn in two packets a month to generate much more work, and that she will send me prompts from time to time. I think this will help me quite a bit.
And then back to my old beast: submissions. I've got to go home, make myself a spread sheet of magazines, and start sending everything that I think might even have the slightest chance. People seemed impressed by my Zone 3 and Minnesota Review publications, but I've got to get more out there. Your publications are really your defining factor. So anyway, I'll have all of that and being on the staff of The New Madrid to deal with, on top of my job at the library, so this semester should be an exhausting, terrifyingly emotional semester, and I might end up a crazy person by the end of it.
Oh, and did I mention that I might have to skip next semester? I have to have Blas as my thesis director. I just won't accept anything else. I really liked Gary, and I really enjoy Carrie already, but I am attached to the kind of work I churned out with Blas, and I just feel like it has to be him. The only problem is that he might not be here in the summer, and I won't know until April. I mean, on one hand, that'd give me a whole semester to churn out work and prep for my thesis, but I was really hoping to do this in two years (My OCD need for a constant, concrete plan). However, if Blas won't be here again until next January, then screw it, I'll wait until then too and just make the best out of a free semester.
Today, we have our group meetings, our last genre craft lecture, and then a program-wide craft lecture. After all of which I have a free evening. If no one asks me to hang out, I might just come back to my room, fall face-down on my bed, and continue my anxiety episode. I'm not thrilled with that idea. I hope that my friends have something planned for the evening.
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