I'm looking forward to doing three things during winter break: sleeping, reading, writing - in that order.

 I really want to write -- even if "just" here. But alas, no time 😞.

 Happy New Year!

I've been thinking about writing. I have some ideas and I want to start seriously writing again, but I'm not sure winter break will afford me enough time. I am not teaching this summer (for the first time in over 20 years) and that is when I plan to take a deep dive.

 I'm cruising along to the end of the semester. Feeling frustrated, because I never have any time. There is always something else to do. For instance, on Friday when it was warm, I so wanted to sit outside. But I didn't, because there was too much to do. Bob says I'd be a lot less stressed out if I retired. I know he is probably right, but I'm afraid of what would redefine me if I leave my job at the end of 2023 (I'll turn 62 during the Fall semester). I can't risk it.

Last week I had a dream that sort of included my father. My mother was in it, and he kind of wasn't -- but she said he was doing important paperwork.

Getting back to my frustration with time, I so want to have time to do some real writing. I want to say something profound about life. But instead, there are always essays to grade.

Today is the 20 year anniversary of this blog. It is also four years since Uncle Bud died. And -- yesterday, my father was gone seven weeks. Years ago bloggers would write up reflections about sharing a journal online on the annual "blogaversary," and sometimes I did too. I wasn't consistent, and many years I forgot the milestone. I don't feel much like reflecting today, except to note that blogger has been an extremely stable free platform for keeping this journal.

The first post of 2019. Will I post more than last year (30)? No idea, but since 2018 was my least active year since I started in 2002...how much lower could it go?

Something I've been thinking about: changing the novelette into first person. Would that make it better?

There has never been a time in the past thirty-five years when my literary shipyard hadn’t two or more half-finished ships on the ways, neglected and baking in the sun; generally there have been three or four; at present there are five. This has an unbusiness-like look, but it was not purposeless, it was intentional. As long as a book would write itself I was a faithful and interested amanuensis, and my industry did not flag; but the minute that the book tried to shift to my head the labor of contriving its situations, inventing its adventures and conducting its conversations, I put it away and dropped it out of my mind. Then I examined my unfinished properties to see if among them there might not be one whose interest in itself had revived, through a couple of years’ restful idleness, and was ready to take me on again as amanuensis.

As I have mentioned recently, I am currently reading volume 2 of Mark Twain's autobiography. Every sentence is a gem. What an insightful way to capture the inspiration that fuels creativity: amanuensis.

 Gina Loves Mark Twain (2007)