Have You Considered Therapy?

So many people from my past are just beyond screwed up , and they don't even realize the impact of their words or actions. 

Family, obviously. 

But also random kids from High School posting crazy Right Wing rants about Guns or Obama or Muslims to my facebook updates,  the guy from way back in Boy Scouts who turns every comment into grandiose & delusion self-reflection, while making sure to belittle my own plans or ideas with his dire, pessimistic predictions, or the crazy ex-wife, who's emails I can't even read because they're always outrageous exaggerations and attacks under the pretense of communication.

Thinking about coding a macro  hat simply responds "Have You Considered Therapy?"

the hazards of habit

one flaw with this strategy is that if I set "7 PM " as my evening writing time, one social event or reading or meetup or , heaven help us, an actual goddamn date , then I will break that streak pretty quickly

Better do my "real" evening writing between 6 & 7 , after dog walking , and screw the "late evenings in the office"  or any other interference.

I can still show up for this, but it's mure supplemental  - free writing, revision, research etc ...

still here, still writing

Back again , after two or three weeks which have seen a snowstorm, lots of driving back and forth between Maryland and New York,  the surprise conclusion of gainful employment and the resuscitation of my job search.  Along with alot of pondering about just what I want to do with my life and where I want to be doing it. 

Oh , and Dvaid Bowie died, so you can check Spotify for the soundtrack of the past two weeks ( insert here )  This was a major influence on my thinking, as I wandered the streets of New York City, thinking about creation and identity.

That note, above, "insert here" - that's how I've been doing lots of writing these days.  And I have been writing.  Every morning - to the point where I feel antsy if the hour is drawing close and I'm not already typing. Now to move that hour earlier.

At a Writers Meetup this evening.  A new thing for me, and in keeping with my resolution to find more creative people while I am here in New York City.  Especially since I may have to move ( high cost of living , pending eviction, no job  - and the same salaries available in Austin, Baltimore or North Carolina with a much lower cost of living ( and probably a higher quality of life ) .

 So while I'm here , I'm making connections.  Or trying to , among not only the tech community, which has previously been my focus, but amongst whatever writers, editors,  agents and designers as I can find as well

Added bonus - I'd like to add some evening writing times to this routine.  Perhaps after I find employment.    The current three week challenge is to cut sweets and baked good s from my diet and to get exercising again. One self-set challenge at a time, for three weeks ( until the habit solidifies )

Thiis is kind of dumb, however, sitting here typing in public when I know there are others around doing the same thing.  I could be home writing, or a coffee shop, without the "writer" tagged attached.  But then , I was about to bail on last night's meetup five minutes after arriving and instead stuck it out and solidified some previous contacts


Whoo hooo.  Maybe I will stay in NYC after al.  Well, whereever I live, I'm going to keep writing ( and get back to doing a better job with updting this blog as well .

first truly cold day of the year  - tested my resolve to get up early ( failed, my muscles ached so much I tossed and turned all night ) . 

 I did get out running - it was so cold the dog's leash snapped at a weak point when we were less than a quarter of a mile down the Bridle Path.  Walked back from the Park with the long end looped over her collar, got a cup of coffee to warm up the fingers and brain ( lost the resolve to abstain as well ) and then muscled my way through another thousand words.

It wasn't easy.  And I still ache as if I've been shot out of a cannon ( the freezing trip down to Union Square to replace the leash didn't help ) but I stuck with my exercise , writing and work .

Plenty of financial headaches ahead, plenty of long hours "on the job" , and the seemingly endless pursuit of new employment yet to start up again.

And it's never going to all be done.

“What we get when we turn pro is, we find our power. We find our will and our voice and our self-respect. We tread in blood when we turn pro" -- Stephen Pressfield, "Turning PRO"

and again

One Thousand More Words

These were significant because I started a bit late, and it took awhile to get going.

But once I sat down, the timer ticking ( I won't let myself check word count until each 25 min session is up, with a 5 min breather in between ) , I hit 1025 just as the bell brrrd

I imagine I'll stop counting the days here , once it's a regular part of my routine.

Though I do want to celebrate an important realization :   the work is sloppy , incoherent and there's lots of research and revision still ahead,  but now something exists where before it didn't.  Each day, I've created something entirely new - characters, ideas, elements of an alternate world. 

These are good accomplishments to consider, the creation and the steady accumulation,  as I settle in at the end of each day.

and once more - one mile and a thousand words

what is the deal with one thousand words? 

only that I;m getting back to my novel, abandoned after the move to New York and the subsequent necessity for a job search

I spent half of last year, working on it weekly while in the writing program in Boston, and the goal was to have had a finished draft by September

instead, what I ended up with was a map of what the novel was going to be , and an idea of the skills necessary, the discipline and practices of execution, for getting it there

The goal for this year is to keep working, each day, good or bad, one thousand words, with no research or revision or even much planning, for three months.

I'll then spend the rest of the year , or at least the next six months, assembling and revising

With a sample chapters ready to show agents by April.

Similarly, I got back to running today.  One mile in Central Park.  10.38 minutes.  34 degrees.
Not that long or fast, though I was with the dog, which presented different challenges ( lots of tugging and racing ahead and other dogs , squirrels and fresh piles of horse dung to sniff at on the trail )

I'll need to kick the job search off later today, as well as keep up with the current contract.

And I'm worried to death about my daughter, based upon a vague  and condemnatory one line email her mother sent me two days ago.  Though I can only keep texting, and try to get back there for a visit as soon as I sort out the frozen bank accounts and get all of my checks since Thanksgiving cleared. 

In the meantime, off to the bookstore to do more research to assist with her college applications.

New Years Day

Just wrote One Thousand Words