Pipelines. Deadlines.

So where were we?

It's been quite a year. I guess the best way to describe it overall would be... You know what? Never mind. Let's keep this PG. Experience is underrated. Let's just say that.

This blog has been all but forgotten. For the past year or two, I've had a handful of projects, articles and other whatsits sitting here on my computer, gather cyberdust or space-bunnies or something. None of these are finished, but all of them are far along (with the least finished project being that Camp Mix thing that I still won't let go of)... Here, I compose a nice and pointless blog post to fill time and space. Could I be working on any of my other whatsits instead? Why sure, I could be, but that's not how it works, darling.

I have what you might call a mental creative pipeline. I put ideas through one end, out the other end comes a product. That's how it works. Simple, really. Except not. See, I don't know what you imagined when I said "pipeline," but if it was something along the lines of the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean Oil Pipeline (ESPOOP for short, which I only point out because POOP), then you're not far off. Good job on the imagination and all that.

ESPOOP is a complex pipeline system that carries crude oil from Russia to China (plus Japan and Korea, I guess). The system spans over 3,000 miles. It's not the longest pipeline in the world, but by golly is it a nightmare. These are two of the most powerful countries in the world (plus Japan and Korea, I guess), but from the moment of its conception, ESPOOP was tangled in embezzlement schemes, fraud, private politics and of course, MURDER. Not to mention the 3,000 miles of pipe. That's a lot of pipe.

What does this have to do with me and Camp Mix? Well, I may have been drifting off-topic. Hmm... My point, basically, is: a pipeline of productivity exists in my head as a long, convoluted, leaky and inefficient delivery system. While the product of such a pipeline is not nearly as valuable as unadulterated petroleum, it definitely takes just as long, if not longer, to be refined into anything that can resemble usefulness. Make sense? No? Well I'm sorry I used up three paragraphs of your time beating around the bush and writing around the fact that my stupid creative pipeline couldn't excrete one solid POOP joke! What a waste!

...perhaps I should have written a rough draft for this post... Wellp, there's no looking back now!

Anyway... We are facing the dawn of a new year, and I don't appear to be any closer to where I was last... Was it November? Of 2015!? Oh dear... Actually, wait a minute, I'm here to prove you all wrong! I am, as a matter of fact, further behind than I was two years ago! Indeed! Why and how, do you ask? It wasn't difficult. I deleted stuff! Such is the way of a writer with no conviction or confidence!

To be completely fair, frank and forthright, I'm relieved. By deleting some of these whatsits, I can start anew... Optimistically, I hope for the momentum I never had before...

But do you know what helps gain some of that momentum? Anti-anxiety medication! I'm kidding. Not really, it does help. But do you know what also helps? Instigating deadlines! Yup yup. I am so NOT kidding. Here goes a list of sorts. Mark your calendars. I'm serious. Do it.

---

With some ado, I will list my Pipeline Deadline Timeline below. Keep in mind that these might not be the only projects I'll release. There are a few more in the works, but they don't have dates because I'm not completely unreasonable. If I had an editor, I bet she'd tell me to slow down. Suffice to say, after I finish the big one, the Finale, the Camp Mix '15 (three four five years late and thirteen fourteen fifteen years in the making), I will be taking a long break. OR MAYBE NOT.

**If I miss any of these deadlines, I'm deleting this blog. And all the music on my computer. And I'll never eat chocolate again.**

• Soon - History of Camp Mix - Part II: Tar Balls

• Soonish - History of Camp Mix - Part III: Primetime

• Sometime - History of Camp Mix - Part IV: Robots and Friends

Eventually - Camp Mix: Remixed and Remastered

• This Year, Probs - History of Camp Mix - Part V: Milestones

• Maybe - Fidelity

• Someday - History of Camp Mix - Part VI: Generations

TBA 2020 - Camp Mix '15 Official Release