Absolutes are really a problem, and should be avoided. They will always come back and bite you in the ass.

After my song and dance about how I was done doing research yesterday, I spent most of tonight… doing research.

Not pure research, like reading the book was, but just investigating something that needed to be done. Again, I think it will make the book stronger, start better, and it’s hopefully funnier because of it, too.

Tonight was definitely one of those nights where I visited sites I never thought I would and you just end up wondering, am I really doing something worthwhile, or am I really just wasting a lot of time. Time will tell, I guess.

I’m kind of in that mode where I’m not in control now. I took in a lot of information that I know I need, and now I’m at the mercy of my subconscious mind to shape it into something bigger and better than I would sitting here and staring.

Trust me, I’d prefer the entire process of writing a novel to be academic, follow this path, connect the dots, and everything works out. But that doesn’t seem to be the path, or mine at least.

I could have easily finished writing what I started yesterday, and this draft of the first chapter would have easily surpassed the awful drek that is in the official first draft. But what I’m planning now surpasses that and sets the bok up better, so I decided not to rush, calm down, go explore over here and see what turns up.

I wonder what I would be like without a day job? Trust me, I wonder this all the time, but usually only from the sense of not wanting my day job. But what would it be like for something like tonight’s flight of fancy to be what I actually did as a professional. I mean, it was an amusing coda to my day now, but it’s hard imagining what would happen if that were my entire day. A few more hours to surf the web looking at random site, inventing worlds and words that invoke our own but yet give me a lot more poetic license. It’s hard to contemplate really.

Like today, I went out for dinner, just to break up the week. So, I leave work at 5, at the restaurant by 5:30, out at 6, home at 6:30, fully working by 7 until about 9:30 p.m. And now, of curse, I write this.

But, removing that 8 hour chunk of the day would definitely prove interesting. Not that I’m looking to get laid off or quit my job, I’m not in good enough financial shape to pull that off. But, I do wonder what my schedule would be like with that much free space to do with as a I please. I won’t know for quite some time, though. Publishing isn’t really a quick industry, so me typing “The End” means 20 percent of my work is done in getting the book on shelves. And publishing is really just the white collar lottery for the most part, and you never know if and when your ticket will come up. There are amazing books that get no attention, absolute crap on bestseller lists, and tons in the middle that find lots of other paths.

Oh well, time to eat a Pyramid Bar and go to bed.

Peace,

Jeff

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 16th, 2002 at 11:14 pm and is filed under diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.