Living in the Projects (or between Them)

I am a project person. I come from a family of project people. My sisters do projects. My mom does projects. I do projects. (Note: My dad is a project, but tell him I said that. Shhh.).

I'm not sure what it is that drives us. Perhaps it's in our blood to always want something to keep us busy. Of course, the projects that my sisters and my mother focus on are quite a bit different than mine. They tend to make quilts, dishrags, hair bows, thank-you cards, puppets, and so on, and I generally focus more on projects that, instead of fabrics and scrapbooking supplies, focus on different facets of writing: novels, essays, poetry, short stories, etc. Technically, this blog itself is one of my on-going writing projects, and is one of my favorites when I'm not suffering from writer's block.

Well, every once in a while, I come to that barren and stiflingly stagnant wasteland in between the bookends of self-industry in which I have no project to work on (except this one, of course) and no ideas for my next one. I search and contemplate the possibilities, but nothing concrete presents itself. Goodness knows, I do have work enough to do, but I'm not looking for more work; I want a project. A good project that will take a while to complete. In the recent months, I have started a couple of different projects involving collections of poetry, but both ideas, while appearing fresh and interesting initially, have figuratively run aground.

I finished the revisions for one of my books a few weeks ago, and I am currently awaiting feedback on my other one, so I haven't anything to work on as far as my novels are concerned. Further, I am not sure if I should begin to write another and don't know what I would write about even if I decided to embark down that avenue. Up until three days ago, I was working on an essay on T. S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men", but I finished it and submitted it to a publisher, so that's not an option anymore. I suppose I could start another essay, a longer one this time, but I can't think of anything regarding which I really am passionate enough to begin doing research at this point. Milton? Hemingway? Faulkner? Cervantes? Stevenson? Too many choices, and no choices at all, and unfortunately figuring it out will take some time. What shall I do in the meantime? I haven't a clue.

Well, that's not exactly true. I do have a clue. I could either sit here and moan about having no project to work on, or simply find something to work on that isn't exactly connected with writing. Perhaps my mental writing-related hemispheres need some rest. Now, I have here on my desk a stack of books on Latin, which I am thinking to utilize in renewing my study of that language. In addition, I have a book of German poetry, another of German short novels, The Divine Comedy, and Don Quixote.

So, maybe if I read all of these books, by the time I finish I will have found something to research, my Latin will have improved, and the feedback on my novel will be back from my readers. Ha! Eureka. (Note: See how useful Latin is?)