As an alleged creative person, I’ve really come to hate the month of January. I know that, objectively, this is totally arbitrary. At least, now that I’m not beholden to the academic calendar, there’s really no reason that January should be any different from April or October. But, whether it has to do with social conditioning, or post-holiday funk, or some primal reaction to the arrival and departure of the solstice — I tend to go into January with a lot of ideas percolating in my head, and then at some point I run into a brick wall. I can’t pick a project to focus on, or I try to write something that might not quite be ready yet and then (as happened this morning) I end up throwing a minor fit because of a trivial formatting issue in the word-processing program I’m trying to use.
Granted, minor fits over trivial formatting issues are nothing unusual for me (I do not have a good relationship with technology in general), but on a day like this it just seems like it amplifies the general ‘a lot of ideas that are very clear in my head and only going to get screwed up when I try to reduce them to words’ kind of feeling. I am thinking about making a new ‘take it for granted you will not get anything done in January’ rule. But does that just make February the new January? I don’t know. [ETA: This also leads to my real fear that if I set an idea aside for too long, it won't be there when I get back. Like, something that was so clear in my head and I just don't remember what it is. This is the purpose of writing the stuff down, I suppose, and I've had bad experiences in the past of losing ideas that I didn't write down.]
Does anybody else have this issue or am I crazy?
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January 17, 2011 at 2:39 pm
Sigrid Ellis
I take January off. I read a lot, watch a lot, listen a lot. I write a lot of notes down, usually in blogs or in emails to friends. Then, in February, I go back through and read all those things and pick out the ideas I want to focus on in the spring.
For a while, every relationship I ended, I ended them in January and February.
January is cold, bitterly cold, here. Everything is made hard by the constant cold and ice and snow, and the constant heavy clothes and mittens and such. Everything outside is filthy, covered in the dirty shmutz of salt and sand from the roads. It is always, always grey — except when the sun shines and the temperature plummets to -15 below zero.
I just get through January, and count reaching February as win enough.
January 17, 2011 at 2:40 pm
madmarvelgirl
Unfortunately last year I don’t think I did anything between January and April. . .
January 17, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Adrian
I’ve never been a fan of January either. It of course started with the whole going back to school thing but, much like Sigrid, the weather played a part too. Where I grew up, January was unbearably hot. Melt the road sort of heat and you just cannot do anything when it’s that hot.
I live closer to the coast now so the heat isn’t anywhere near as bad but January still has me in a funk. I don’t wanna do anything because I’ve never done anything this time of year. Makes getting back into work after the Xmas break really tough.
I like the idea of taking January off. I may look into this in the future.
January 17, 2011 at 4:10 pm
Erica McGillivray
I think it has to do with the idea of the New Year as a beginning and the whole making resolutions thing, which most of fail as we’re too ambitious about everything.