Wheel of Punishment

Now that the agree is official (I promise, I've seen the MFA conferred on my transcript and everything) the act of picking up my daily life begins.

Since I started calling in favors in about October of last year, I have landed four jobs and connected with some very interesting people. The jobs are intermittent but long running - writing as a book reviewer for a respected magazine, writing as a coauthor for a new photography text, working as an assistant for a well connected photographer, and teaching a wet lab lecture at a local community college - and together they provide just enough money to stay afloat until my student loans kick in.

But they don't offer me a daily routine in the least. As a book reviewer I write four columns a year. I get a lot of free photo books out of the deal (which is awesome) but very little pay and very little busy work. For the co-authorship I may very well be busy in a few months, but as of right now I am waiting for the flag to drop. The assisting job has been a great connection, but I don't actually work for him until March, so there is a great deal of waiting on that as well. And for the teaching, it is a entry level position that meets every other Friday for six hours.

All told, I am very excited about each opportunity. But I have realized something about myself over the last few months. I need to have something to keep me busy. The thesis was great for the days when I felt like working because it kept me dedicated and focused for hours at a time. But now I am listless and unmoored. I need something to keep me going until I get back into a steadier routine.

Which is why I created the Wheel of Punishment. It actually isn't punishing so much as motivating, but I reference Avatar: The Last Airbender (the TV series, not the upcoming Shaymalan farce) because it is so wonderful. (For those of you that are curious, refer to the episode "Avatar Day.")

The Wheel of Punishment consists of tasks written down on strips of paper that are to be completed when pulled out of a bowl. They range from doing laundry to submitting imagery online for stock sale. My intention is for the Wheel to be a two week cycle, so that my house will always be clean and orderly, I will work through boxes of accumulated stuff to determine what to keep and what to give away, I will be encouraged to write and shoot, and I will not be left idle.

This morning I pulled "Master Bathroom" from the bowl and proceeded to remove every element from the shower, vanity, and floor in our master suite so that I could scrub, mop, polish, and organize every surface. The shower curtain is currently drying on the banister and the floor mats in the dryer.

After the completion of what I could accomplish linearly for the first task, I drew the second - write. This isn't really a specific task, nor should it be. Showing up at the page, no matter its significance, is important to me being able to stay frosty with my writing. The intention with most tasks is to complete them before I move on to something else - as with cleaning the bathroom literally from floor to ceiling. With writing, though, the definitive "end" is more elusive. I am currently writing a fiction novel for fun, but I am certainly not going to be able to write the whole thing in one day, nor would I want to. I am trying to conceptualize more articles, it's true, but have none in mind. Besides, writing can extend to journaling, editing, fiction, job related, or even blogging. The important step being that I must engage in writing something. The determination of when that task is "complete" is up to my state of mind, I suppose. But when I am done here, another task awaits me in the bowl, so it can be a balance between what I want to do, what I need to do, and what I don't want to do. In this case I have already cleaned the bathroom and therefore know that it is no longer in the bowl, so I am not as reluctant to return to the bowl. I also don't feel as though I have much to say today. I am still thinking too much about yesterday.