Dreams of the Quill

What happened to April and March Posted on April 20, 2008 at 6:49 am by Flak Post Categories: Life • Reflections Tagged: boxes • excuses • honey & clover • sunday update Comments:

You might be wondering what happened to the promise of “something—anything” every Sunday. Well, I kind of… forgot. Yeah. The last few Sundays have been devoid of updates because I’m devoid of memory; I haven’t written any HC in the past few weeks and thus have left Sundays empty. I only now recall that blog-like posts are fine, too. And here we go.

I’m not going to go into specific reasons as to why I’ve not accomplished a bunch of the things I’ve wanted to accomplish. Instead, I’d like to recount to you a scene from a certain show—Honey & Clover. We see one of the main characters, Hagu, an art student, kneeling in front of a blank canvas. Then suddenly we’re in her mind and she’s standing on top of a hill. There’s a large box in front of her, and she opens it, unleashing something (a dragon, I think it was) incredibly beautiful. We then see her painting this dragon’s likeness. Flash back to the inside of Hagu’s mind: there are several boxes opening on their own around her, and the sun is rising on her hill, and she’s surrounded by millions of these boxes, and there’s the sudden realization:

There’s no way a human life is long enough.

I bring this up because I make this “box analogy” often. As people who read my away messages on AIM, etc. are aware, I often have some kind of diatribe against boxes. Too many boxes, etc. Now, I’m not claiming to be like Hagu in every respect—I’m of a decent height, and I’m male, and I’m most certainly not a painting prodigy—but I identify with the box thing. There are too many things I want to create. There are too many stories… too many characters… too many events… that I want to write about. There are too many sites that I want to code. There are too many sketches I want to create.

I have too many boxes. There’s no way a human life is long enough.

Now, I don’t rely on that idea to make myself depressed (I’m really happy and pleased, most of the time). I turn the box thing on its head and call it “infinite inspiration.” But even without looking at how my life will end in too few years, even without looking at the bigger picture of all the things I won’t be able to create, I have too many boxes. It’s affecting me on the micro level if you will.

Why haven’t I finished the Geek Squad comic?

Why haven’t I written Hunter Chronicles in a few weeks?

Why haven’t I done my first full Tundra of Heroes editing run yet?

Why haven’t I worked on Farewell to Gauntlet since December?

Why haven’t I contributed anything to Drawing My Heart since December?

All these questions can be answered: there’s no way a human life is long enough, there’s no way a year is long enough, there’s no way a day is long enough. Two days ago, my friend Owen told me that “people have 24 hours in a day, to do with as they please”—24 hours is not enough.

I’ve been working at my job, the redesign of a local chess club’s website. I’ve been lending some web design skills to a secret society of anime bloggers. I’ve been writing Night Switch almost non-stop (yes, I know, the last three weeks I only managed four updates/week and not five). I’ve gotten -some- amount of sketching in (see: Drawing Harvest yesterday). I’ve been doing a ton of inspired homework for my English class. I’ve been wearing out piles of lead in Drawing.

I’ve been opening boxes—and that is why I haven’t opened boxes.

Erk—I said I would address my writing plan for the rest of the year, but I think I’ll do that next weekend. For now, chew on the cardboard, please.