Why Is April the Cruellest Month?

My answer would be different than T.S. Eliot's answer.  For one thing, I would not write a modernist epic to explain.  Or would I?  I'm not dead yet.  Maybe in retirement, I'll start writing longer poems. Maybe I'll take out a lot of my lines that do too much to explain.  Maybe I'll trust the reader more, or maybe I'll have a Pound type friend who will convince me not to care whether or not people get all the meanings. But that's a topic for another day.

Why is it almost always that I have the most trouble getting writing tasks done during April?  It should be easy with National Poetry Month, right?  Ha!

I usually have travel of some kind in April, and it's the month for the dentist, and this month, the dermatologist.  In my full-time administrative job, we have beginning of the quarter duties, which often take more time than the ones at the end.  In my part-time online teaching job, I have end of semester tasks.

And let me not forget that most years, April includes a lot of extra spiritual tasks, at least for me.  There's Easter and Holy Week.  Even for those of us who aren't church professionals, a lot of extra tasks come our way.  It enriches, but it takes up more time that isn't exactly plentiful to begin with.

But I write all this not to whine.  No, I write to remind myself that I will soon have a bit of free time.  Not free time.  Time is never free for me.  No, it will be time that isn't assigned elsewhere.  If I am not careful, the time gobblers will set their sets on it.

So let me assemble a list.  I do better with a list.  What do I want to accomplish in May and June?

My chief priority:

--the memoir/book of essays.  I need to get the "final" revisions done.  I have a whole pile of easy edits, so it's time to actually go ahead and type them in.

--I will send the query letter to the agent who represented Kathleen Norris' The Cloister Walk.  I will select 3 more agents too.

--I will send out 15 packets of poems.  It's been too long since I submitted.

--I will get back on track writing poems--I want to write two poems a week.

--I will write one short story.

Let me stop here.  Let me not want to do so much that I get overwhelmed and do nothing.

I will report back in the early days of July to let us know how I did.