Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Spent hours today going through all my notes and transcripts for next Esquire article, which I owe Warren . . . sometime veeeery soon!

Writing down key points on old Fortran cards (don't ask), I now have a stack about 3 inches thick.

Tomorrow morning I will begin the great sorting--replete with special hat on. Following a son's track meet I start writing tomorrow afternoon, with a big push extending through Monday. Goal is first draft of roughly 6k to Warren COB Monday.

Fallback is Tuesday noon.

July issue already shipping out to printers. As usual, I am likely to be the last guy in the door before it closes.

Yes, that sort of cutting-it-close does worry me, except my problem on this piece is an embarrassment of riches, not a shortage.

Still, I will feel much better once I get the sorting done tomorrow. Even more than the writing, I find those exercises to be the supreme act of creativity--real "beautiful mind" sort of fun where you walk around the office with hundreds of cards spread out on floor and you sort of move through it all, gyrating your brain around all unseen laser beams.

I used to be scared about moments like that: having to step up and be really creative all at once.

Then I realized I put them off to the moment when it starts to subconsciously click for me, which is why those moments always work, which is where my confidence comes from.

Still, I love having a job where you have to get up in the morning and say, "I have to be brilliant between 0700 and 1400!" You know, like you can pencil it in or something!

But seriously, you do have to pencil it in, and the trick in doing that is not mustering some imaginary brilliance that is or isn't there. Rather, it's all in the send-up, which tends to be weeks in the making. I mean, I started writing this piece in my head in early January, when I first broached the idea with Warren.

Call it tantric creativity.

Either that or somebody's been on the road too much lately ....