Procrastination? or is it deep thinking? Deadlines!

Yes, it's the last day of my vacation-- well, the first day of the new week, and I'll be back to school tomorrow. And yes, there's a stack of papers I have not graded. Did I kick that metaphorical can down the road? Likely. Though I have known that they were there, marinating in my tote bag. I'll get them done today, and none the worse for the wait. That said, there are other projects I've been creatively putting off for a while, and that's where I'm wondering if it's truly procrastination, or if it is just my brain needing some time and space to think about approaches to the tasks.

I've got three things on my literary horizon that I should be poking away at, and I will. One is going through a friend's manuscript to make suggestions for edits and so on. I've read it through, and I know what I want to say, but I have not done so yet. In my defense, she said it's no rush, but I will get that done within this coming week. Similarly, I have my own manuscript to get ready to send out. A friend read through the draft and made some suggestions for edits and revisions that I want to consider. Some I will hold onto for other projects, but others I might just play around with. At some point, this manuscript needs to be declared done enough to kick out of the nest. I was hopeful of doing so this vacation week, but other things got in the way, and I really was not in a good head space to revisit the poems yet. I have submission deadlines written in my datebook, so I will definitely have to get things done by the first of those. Next weekend, I plan to be "done," so this week, I will tackle that project.

The third project is far weightier; I am reading and annotating through a poetry collection by a poet I have not met in order to write a review of the book. It's complex, and I have read through it fully once so far; there are notes upon notes that I've made, and things I need to research and ponder on, before I can even begin to make a cogent start. This project is bubbling along on my mental back burner, and I've broken the process down into smaller pieces. The research part has to happen next, and, if I get my brain working on it (after I grade the papers!), I might accomplish that today. I hope so; this is a challenging collection of poems by an established and award-winning poet, and I cannot conceive of doing this in a shoddy way. 

So, it seems I have a stack of papers and three projects beckoning. Somehow, I have to fit in house chores and going to work. Ah, the life of a literary introvert. I prefer that title to master procrastinator.

Have a good day!

C