I do my best thinking of a morning after I first wake. I wish I had time to write then. My mind instantaneously becomes alive with thought. Whether it be a preponderance of the whys and wherefores about the dreams I've just left behind, or an attempt to gain new light on an existing dilemma, or at times a new thought coming about in my refreshed state of mind... mornings seem to hold the best and brightest thoughts.

However, throughout the years, I've taught myself to procrastinate doing what I truly would like to do by not allowing myself to indulge until everything else is done... house cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, putting things away, etc. I rarely make my bed of a morning unless I'm going to have company. But if I am in the mood to write, or draw, or paint, then I feel "forced" to have everything around me perfect... or at least as close to perfect as I can get it. Otherwise the slightest thing will distract me. I will be staring off into my thoughts and sure enough, there, just beyond the thought I'm trying to grasp, is a stinking cobweb in the corner or lint all over the rug screaming at me to come vacuum into perfection... it is maddening.

Therefore it is, at the very earliest, afternoon before I can begin anything and many times evening so I'm soon out of time. I'm hoping tonight, being as it is Saturday and I can sleep in tomorrow, I will finish a thought before quitting.

Writing is the most difficult, I think. It is exhausting. I haven't yet figured out if it is due to the emotional high and lows or simply the facing of my demons in honesty that is the drain. It could also easily be that I become exhausted as a way to "stop" writing. Rarely after quitting to go take a nap or lay down for a while do I resume again where I left off.

I don't have the stamina for failure much anymore, either. Even 5 years ago, when the lines of a drawing didn't come together easily I had the tenacity to keep trying and working with it. Not so much any more and THAT is more discouraging to me than any ability...