Looks like I’m back to my previous minimalist theme, which I should rename “I just can’t quit you” instead of Twenty-Eleven.

Egad. I think it’s time to wave that white flag. I’ve been trying – and I mean trying – to get something written this month, and nothing’s happening. The process is, at best, just a series of half-hearted fits and starts, and as for motivation, there’s nothing there.

Because of jury duty, my life’s pretty much on hold right now. I also reassessed certain goals I had regarding my writing and my day job, and I’m guessing that that along with my temporarily rewritten schedule and the accompanying stress are working together to bring about this – er – wasteland of creativity.

Oh, yeah. I’ve also been burned out for a while now. There you go.

At this point I’m just so tired of swimming against the currents that I decided to stop fighting until the trial’s finished, and I’ve got my life back. Maybe this is some great cosmic force’s way of telling me to slow the heck down. In the past, I never took a break from writing beyond a week after finishing one book in order to re-energize for the next one. I guess it’s high time to take a much, much longer break than usual.

I’m also not getting any younger, and what worked back then certainly doesn’t now. Pressure I place on myself needs to be tweaked a bit, and above all, I need to learn to accept the fact that the path to a certain end varies from writer to writer, and I need to stop chasing after shadows. I’m thinking now that the goals I recently set for myself are unrealistic at least in my case. They’re not for me, though they work beautifully for other people.

There’s going to be quite a bit more reassessing I need to do, and it looks like I’ve got the rest of the trial to deal with that. In the meantime, I’ll read and continue to scribble notes in my writing journal regarding that annoying little corner I seemed to have painted myself into with Helleville.