This town was meant for passing through

I tagged on the "angst" label to this post, but I don't really feel angsty. Mostly I just feel like I'm not sure what I should be doing with myself on the creative front. Not that I need more things to do to keep me busy, because I've been taking care of a lot of non-writing projects this summer. And I've been doing a lot of reading, which I count as writing-related work. And planning for the fiction writing class I'll be teaching in the fall. But I have gone a few weeks without actually writing, and I feel a little antsy and perhaps a little knee-jerk guilt about that. After all, writing is my life, right? I should be pouring my every bit of strength and free time into it if I hope to get anywhere with my career?

Except, of course, that writing is not my whole life. And these other projects give me a sense of satisfaction to work on, as well. And I'm really struggling to carve out any regularly scheduled writing time this summer. Well. Not entirely true, because the time is there. But it carries with it the knowledge that at any given moment I could be called away from the writing. And that's really just an excuse, because I know if I put my mind to it I could train myself to write under those circumstances--I have before. Remember back when the kids were little, Lori, how you used to carry around the shorthand notebook and pride yourself on writing stories in 5-minute increments, standing at the kitchen counter while the kids ate lunch? In my defense, I was writing much shorter fiction back then. But I have become spoiled by my school year routine.

My question to myself, then, is do I push to train myself to write on the spot, a few minutes at a time, again? Or do I let the writing slide for a few more weeks until the school year begins again and allow myself the luxury of using the would-be-writing time to continue catching up on reading and other non-writing projects?

I'm leaning toward the latter. It's not like summer lasts forever, anyhow. Right?