Revved Up & Worn Out

Today presented one of those exciting, exhausting, frustrating and stimulating things: A first.

I was challenged a few months ago to consider teaching a class in colored pencil (see Blizzard Babe, left). Silly me, I said, “Yeah, sure. Why not?”

Colored pencil is one of my two favorite painting mediums, but since I’ve been focusing more on writing, colored pencil has dropped off the radar. My days have been unevenly divided between writing (which gets most of my time these days) and painting horse portraits in oils. Other than a few art trading cards, I haven’t done much colored pencil work in the last couple of years.

So why not teach a colored pencil class?

The decision was made back in November. I’ve been alternately thinking about how to lead a class (my first), ignoring it and worrying about how to begin since then.

Today was the first class. I had four students and we had a great time, even though we concentrated mostly on doing a color wheel. Not only was I pleased and excited by how the class turned out, I was left thinking about how to do advanced classes and, yes, maybe even a workshop. The high that resulted from a successful first class made everything possible.

Because the class is in the afternoon in one of two prime writing times, I re-ordered my entire day. Writing occupied my morning today, then the afternoon class and then, I hoped, more writing.

The only problem is that I got so revved up for the class, that I spent most of evening trying to work up enthusiasm for writing again. It wasn’t necessary to write this evening. I made the minimum daily requirement on word count this morning, but with the snowflake for Saving Grace so close to completion, I really didn’t want to idle away an evening doing nothing.

But there was definitely some let down after the class. All that energy had to go somewhere, so I was feeling like going to bed at 6:30 p.m. and doing everything else I could find to do in order to avoid facing the computer after that.

I even listed some things on eBay. Now if that’s now work avoidance, I don’t know what is!

I did eventually get back to work writing new scene descriptions to fill in a couple of those gaps I mentioned a couple days ago. The evening’s work was definitely less enthusiastic than the morning’s work, but any time I can put two words together and they make sense, I consider it a good batch of work.

And it’s not like the week has been slow for writing. Tuesday and Wednesday both had total word counts of over 10,000 and Tuesday was over 12,000. I’m not about to start complaining about that! No way.

So no matter what happens for the rest of the day, it’s been a good day and God inspired.

A very good day.