“Its Mega-Maid sir!” The Creative Vacuum.
Sometimes that Creative Vacuum goes from suck- to blow.
I don’t live in a creative vacuum where there is nothing there (zero atmosphere), and I certainly am influenced by what came before me (thoroughly post-modern Billy). But when I am writing, I am in a vacuum in that very little else matters.
It’s terrible- I feel terrible! I don’t think I neglect my wife and kids (job is another story) but I DO interact with them while I am somewhere else. Conversations are probably pretty fucking tiresome for Bettie and her sister (she lives with us, did I mention that Boopsie, sister of Bettie, lives with us now?) since all my brain can process is What I Am Writing (and what influenced/s it).
I admit- I get kind of frustrated with my own ability to see outside when I’ve (figuratively) locked myself in and drawn the mental curtains to get some writin’ done. I imagine it is worse for them I love and interact with.
I still play with the kidlets, but often my brain is elsewhere. Its like a fresh stab wound- that ever present throb and itch. Or a migraine- a creative migraine, blinding me to pretty much everything but what I’m working on/poised to work on. I can still drive, work, wash, eat, interact- I don’t literally seclude myself.
But there are steel shutters in my head, y’all, and they come down with a fuckin’ clang that resonates from hither to thither and far past yon.