Ever since I was in grade school, I'd panic and feel like a disgrace if I missed an assignment. Fast forward into high school, and I had several hours of homework every night. I'd stay up until two in the morning at least once a week just doing homework even if I started after school. I usually finished everything. The nights I didn't, I was usually too tired to care until the class I did not finish the homework for rolled around. Then I was anxious all class, unable to look my teacher in the eye.
What does any of this have to do with digital writing? Well, for one, writing on this blog is part of my homework. It isn't difficult, but when you are driving and running all day even on weekends, writing anything can be a stressful event. Right now, I'm not stressed at all about this blog; I'm worried about another class. I suppose I should not have put the assignment off, but I was doing homework for other classes. My assignment is to write an essay on a memory then translate it into a poem. Yeah, it's as wonderful as it sounds.
The reason I'm scrambling to complete this essay and poem is not that I procrastinated (though I am guilty of that at times) or that I forgot (forgetting to do homework is like forgetting to brush my teeth after a breakfast); it's that I went to go see fireworks this weekend. I bet a lot of people reading this went to go see the fireworks, and they were impressive, but when I woke up this morning, this Labor Day, I was exhausted. I thought I could get the essay finished before a family gathering. I was very wrong.
I was so tired to the point I could not keep my eyes open. So, I slouched in the couch and took a nap. I woke up with just enough time to finish my essay, but not edit it. Because I went out last night after work instead of writing this essay, I am panicking and cursing myself for not being able to choose between socializing and homework.
So this is my dilemma: when do I stop writing and go experience life, and when do I stop experiencing in order to write? Where is the balance? High school I was awful at balancing my personal creative life and my social life. Purely awful. I either spent all week doing nothing but homework or all week doing nothing but going to school events and hanging out with friends. Somehow, some way, I passed all of my classes, but not without many nights of frustration and mornings of zombie-like oblivion.
Do I go out this weekend even if I have a lot of homework to do because next weekend there is nothing going on? With writing assignments and creative writing for my personal endeavors complicates this question. I want to be a writer, but I now I have to go out and have experiences in order to write about them. I can imagine and sympathize with character experiences in books, but I cannot truly understand until I actually participate. As Gandalf said in The Hobbit, "The world is not in your books and maps. Its out there." I cannot remember if this is from the book or just the first movie exclusively. Even so, there is a lot of truth in the phrase.
Still, the question is, when is it time to put down the pen or shut off the computer to go play and participate in the world, and when is it time to write about what you saw and experienced? There has to be a balance. Maybe I'll just figure it out one day and shout "Eureka!" and be thrilled I'm finally finished with the wondering. Or, maybe I never will. Myabe I'll be doomed for the rest of my life to make these damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't decisions. Perhaps writers never figure out the perfect balance--if there is even such a thing.
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