The Guilties

Me and Pooks, collapsed in our German poofs after like 30 hours of travel.

You know how anorexic girls are like skin and bones but look in the mirror and see a blob of fat? That is how I am with productivity.

I am in this constant state of guilt for not doing more art, but 7 times out of 10, I am feeling that guilt WHILE WORKING ON AN ARTISTIC PROJECT. It's like...I have trained myself to be so productive, I can't even honor the work I am currently doing. Literally, a few months ago I started beating myself up about not being a more serious artist because I opted to write an e-mail to a friend instead of work on a story I was writing while at a coffee shop. And then I realized I was at the coffee shop before musical rehearsal, I had just spent an hour reading an acting textbook, and I was planning to attend an improv jam after rehearsal. Oh, it's destructive, and I KNOW it is...but I sure have a case of The Guilties today.

Okay, so, something anorexics have to do is physically get on the scale and say, "Yes. I weigh 92 pounds, and I have to understand that I am not fat." Please allow me to use this blog to do the same. I need to weigh-in.

In the past year, in order to progress as an artist, I:

continued work on a short story collection
read several books about improv and theatre
participated in a holiday improv mainstage show
was on a longform improv team
went to shortform jams regularly
wrote three articles for an online journal
wrote an article for a published collection that will hit stores soon
wrote an article for the camp newsletter
wrote a blurb in The CS Journal
was in a community theatre musical
taught Intro to Improv for several months
workshopped LC's entire novel
audited an acting seminar
prepared and participated in ACTF
participated in the STL One-Act Festival
participated in the STL 24-Hour Film Festival
wrote in this blog almost every day
made a scrapbook about the past two years of my life
made a book of wedding poetry for Muff and Jamba
wrote a new full-length play to get into graduate school
wrote a one-act play to submit to contests

I also held down two jobs. And ran a marathon.

Okay, Alice. Say it: Yes. I've been very productive with my art this year, and even though that short story collection is not done today (the one at the top of the list), and it might not be done by the time I leave for grad school, I have to understand that I am not unproductive.