Inconsistent Effort

Looking at my grades today
I had mostly Bs.
English Classes I would normally fail.
Math classes I would normally oscillate 
Between a B and an F.
On every report card there would be an "I"
For "Inconsistent Effort."

Today I was looking at the volume of work I've written.
The volume of work I've read.
Fourteen published books.
Just about every classic I've either read or dabbled in.
Yet, I look throughout the week
Keeping strict tabs on my work
Including Mowing the Lawn
Studying to find more material for writing
Cleaning, cooking, or whatever I find work experience;
Also the amount of time I spend reading and writing.
I've chalked up my work to about twenty-one thousand hours
Since 2007. About fifteen thousand of those were devoted to writing.
I even did the count, seventeen years I've been writing.

However, I look on my report card, 
"Inconsistent Effort."
It's true. I didn't hand in homework assignments
I didn't take the greatest care for classwork
Mostly because I've had my biorhythms---
It's called pseudoscience but I highly doubt that.
My inconsistent effort is chalked up
To a cycle within myself,
Where I can go through bursts of amazing productivity.
Sometimes even for months.
But, when that cycle ends, 
So does the productivity.
I had such stressful days at school
Last thing I ever wanted to do was homework.
I wanted to exercise my wild imagination
Which could take me anywhere, and took me everywhere.

It's why I have a hard time keeping jobs
Not because I get bored of them
But because of that "I" I'd get on my report card every year.
My mind, and rhythm of working goes in cycles
Where at some points I'm an "A" student
But on my downturns, I'm an "F" student.
For an entire month I wrote diligently a chapter
In my Magnum Opus, but for a week I couldn't bring myself to it.
And ought I have, the quality of my work would have been poor.
No, I rather jump to this, and write blog posts;
I watch seven videos on G. K. Chesterton,
I read his greatest work
I get enflamed by it...
Several days or weeks from now I'll write another ninety or so
Movements for my epic poem.

But, if this were school,
If the daily wire were my clock,
I'd have to consistently work on this poem
Every night, until it was finished.
I'd have to set myself to the deadline
And keep my nose to the grind.
Possibly sacrificing the quality of my work.

Finishing a project isn't hard for me...
It's just a matter of time.
Often a work seems finished, but then it gets put aside.
Several months or years later it gets taken back up again
And over the course of three to four years I have a book
Which began as several dozen books
Which then get condensed into a compendious volume
Which---when I read it---all fits together like a puzzle would.
Every piece in place the way it's supposed to be.

Yet, I look at the inconsistent effort.
I taught myself what direct and indirect objects were;
I enjoyed that little lesson I learned on YouTube.
I spent an entire summer learning all the points of grammar and linguistics.
But, if you tell me to learn all of that on someone else's time;
Or, if I must go to the gym twice a week---so to speak, as is the battle right now---
I'd much rather go walk in the park
And when I'm ready, come into the gym to do my barbells.

It's a rhythm in my life which only writing can satisfy.
I chose this profession wisely
Because it's the only one I could consistently do.
I can write a novel of the course of three years
And work on several dozen other projects in that same time of reference.
I can work on multiple books, multiple disciplines at my own pace.
And I'm a prolific autodidact, having mastered seven or eight subjects.

My curriculum is self made, self inflicted.
But, I am not an engine.
I am not a machine.
That is why I never did well at school.
It's even why my best subjects were the ones I failed them most at.
Because I have to want to learn Past Participles and Helper Verbs;
Everything has to be handed to me in neatly formatted and compendious ways.
I cannot learn something small over a long period of time,
I must learn it all in a few moments.
If I earned my PhD, I'm not sure I could
Except that some university awarded it to me
Based on my efforts outside of the classroom.
Because in the classroom, I'm worthless
I've had a few flowering and budding classes
But I want knowledge not school.
And I work---consistently, I've worked about a seven hour a day work week
Or four hours every day. I'd say that is about my working habit
About four and a half hours every day.
If it's not studying diverse subjects on YouTube
It's reading, or writing, or finding inspirations in the wind.

Yes, in just about every English Class I failed.
I have nightmares about it---
My College Courses I passed with flying colors
But that inconsistent effort.
My best college courses were done over the summers---
When everything came at me fast and in compendious form.
Over the six month hauls of traditional spring or winter courses
I didn't do so well. In fact I struggled
Because my life has been on a biorhythm 
Where I'm highly productive over short bursts of time
And in those times I am capable of prodigious genius.
But, in the times when I'm not, I take up the pen
And---while some writers have writer's block,---
I have it in a different way, where my mind dulls
And I must refuel it elsewhere with some other form of tinder.