No more “outside” work other than and until my own (money gigs) are complete. I have put them aside for far too long and far too often of late to assist too many in picking up the slack. All this while risking losing potential contracts in the process.
Today I forced myself to get on to one and it took me two to three hours before any forward motion was achieved. The distractions over the last few weeks had put me off focus and it was a bitch trying to pull it all back in.
So, I am going crawl into my creative cocoon and am not emerging until my projects are all cooked to my satisfaction. Until these are accomplished I will not be in a happy state. And not being in a happy state is not where I want to be.
EDIT: 7 AM
See, this “not happy” state also brings me bad dreams. Like the one that woke me at 4 this morning. One of those “things are not right” dreams.
OK… more specifically one of those “things are not right as you stroll her backyard and every time she comes out she is someone else… sure, this has happened before but when she leaves to get the lemonade and returns via a wooden trap-door under the patio furniture it just doesn’t bode well… then a black hummer pulls up and an overly friendly couple emerges with guns and ask if they can sit by the lake at the edge of the yard… a lake you have never noticed before along with a recently abandoned African village… and as the couple sit in their leather lawn chairs wild dogs begin to circle in a menacing way and you know things are not right when the couple cheerfully starts shooting at them and the dogs don’t die and just stare… giving you pause to wonder which of the two are more evil the dogs or the couple…. until two friends who seem to know the dogs beckon you to steal the hummer and escape from the shooting couple who are getting more hellish with every shot… but when you do steal it… it changes into a Volkswagen just as you approach a muddy path in a jungle setting and come across the burial ground of a 13th century Chinese princess and her entourage whose graves are being robbed by the poor and hungry… and as they open her grave her pristine corpse looks the spitting image of the female friend you escaped with… suddenly a growl comes from the grave behind you and your male friend screams and you tell your female friend to run and you try to but your male friend is holding your leg and you resolve to pull him along knowing full well that the zombie Chinese eunuch has got your friend who has got you but something inside tells you that if you just don’t look back things will be OK and you wonder where all the poor and hungry have disappeared to…. but now you are crawling on the ground with your friend’s arms tight around your neck as the zombie thrusts his claws into your friend’s back and pulls out his kidneys… OK this really doesn’t bode well but as long as you don’t look back it may be fine and you will not be eaten because looking back will make it real and then you cross the white line on the jungle path and it is the safe zone you are not sure how you know that but it is… because the zombie has fallen back too busy devouring your friend and you see your female friend who you told to run earlier waiting under a tree for you and you are glad she is safe but as you get nearer you are suddenly not quite sure if this is really your friend or the dead 13th century Chinese zombie princess” kinda dream. You know the one, right?