I've just gotten off the phone with a friend from the MFA program. We talked about what we've been doing since graduation-the reading, the writing. I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to keep up the production on new material and I'm realizing that I have to quit turning the screws on myself. I need to relax into a new mode of production. A phase has ended by graduating the MFA program and I need to find the new rhythm my life allows for creativity.
Over the course of the conversation I also realized that I'm in the middle of a major transition. I have finished a major milestone in my life and am about to begin a whole new adventure that may offer a lifetime of inspiration and satisfaction unlike some of the other career opportunities I have tried.
Also, I have just come off a creative high in putting my thesis together, much like an entire book project, and I need to allow myself the chance to gain some distance from that project before I begin anew. This is not an excuse to stop writing but rather a chance to begin something entirely different which means I will begin in starts and stops. It isn't that I'm not writing but rather I am learning how to write the new thing and not rehashing old territory.
As one of my adviser's always said, "Onward and Upward."
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