Right now, I’m working full-time, taking a graduate-level library and information science course, and taking improv. I’m on the board of 2 arts organizations. I’ve got family coming to town next week, and friends coming to dinner this weekend. I’ve got a presentation due and an improv performance next Tuesday, a paper due the Tuesday after that, and a final exam due the Tuesday after that. We just released a major project at work this week, but that project still has some loose ends, and we’re launching into the next phase of another big project ASAP.

And of course, there’s laundry to be done, dishes to load and unload, Halloween decorations to put away, Thanksgiving decorations to get out or make and then put away, mail to sort, bills to pay…

Earlier this week, I thought, “Am I going to get all of this done?”

Then I thought, “Obviously I will, because what is the other choice?”

But knowing it would all get done didn’t make it any less overwhelming.

Yesterday, in a startling moment of clarity, I knew what I needed to do.

I needed to recruit my likewise-too-busy, overwhelmed friends to a book group where we very slowly read Kim Werker’s Mighty Ugly together.

So I made a list of seven friends whom I thought might benefit from facing their creative demons right now and wrote them a loving missive inviting them to join me in January in this new adventure. I asked them to just let me know before Christmas so I could set up a Doodle poll for our first meeting. I said if they had to miss some meetings, that was totally fine. I was pretty sure they’d all say, “Oh, well, I’m so busy…” or “Let me see what the new year is going to look like…”

Within an hour, six of the seven had replied positively. (The last one hasn’t replied yet.)

And now we have a blog and a pinboard and a hashtag.

This is a thing that’s happening. I hope you’ll follow along, and perhaps start your own group or work through the book at your own pace. Maybe by January 2016, we’ll all be making a lot more and letting our creative demons stop us a lot less.