Sigh. Efficient mongoose I was not.  All of the painty colors, the smells of the studio, the black ink....I couldn't focus. I jumped from painting to painting, book sketch to art sample, and ended up in the middle of this pit. The main problem? A whole host of ideas were pounding to get out..spilling over each other, gooey and unfinished, bumping around and making the business of getting down to business, nearly impossible. 

_{So what exactly should I do when the new ideas are too noisy and unmanageable?  How can I balance completing the things that need to be done (book deadlines, getting paintings shipped off to stores...), while still letting the creative creatures that are no more than inklings and longings, poke their heads out too? This is tricky business indeed. Even trickier these days, carving out the time to entertain them.} 

I woke up this morning with a bright idea. Or more like, a sleep deprived, blurry, and semi-plausible idea. I'm going back to my old friend the timer. Once upon a time, I used the timer for everything. How does it work? I commit myself to working in ridiculously little bits. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Even TWO minutes. Yup. Two minutes. They add up, they really do. And more importantly, they build momentum. And right now, this mongoose needs all the momentum she can get.