I'm a slow writer. There, I admit it. Sometimes I can't believe I spend so much time wrangling over my words. I swear I've spent like 3 months on about 2 pages worth of material in two chapters of this epic fantasy novel I'm working on.
So why so slow? Why so little progress?
I don't know. Yeah it bugs me. Why just TODAY little Brycen was asking me about my story and if I had it done yet. I said, no. And then he asked how long. And I told him I might be working on it for the rest of my life and STILL not finish it!! To which Obo told me that HE'D finish it for me. 7 years old and plucky as ever!! Right now Obo is. All. Over. The place. With his own version of storytelling. Right now that's action/adventure based in our yard. Usually he's "playing Star Wars", which basically amounts to him taking a sword or some other weapon and running off in persuit of the "bad guys". Of course when I ask him how to play the game he JUST asked me to play with him he gets all discombobulated and turns to me asking me how we play the game.
C.R.A.Z.Y.
Welcome to the world of 7-year-olds with over-active immaginations. Now back to the world of 46-year-olds with the same problem--only different...
I think the key for me to break out of this long productivity slump is to TRY to focus on ironing the story forward and not devoting ALL my energy on making chapters 1 and 2 perfect. Do I wan't perfection? Fuck yeah, Skippy! Especially with this story. It's specical. Trust me, it is.
Time management wise I've got a lot on my plate. First there was that pesky stainging of the house. YES, that's complete now, but when I was going through with it, that task ate up a lot of my time. Then there was the task of my work re-certifcation: an in-depth nearly 50 question thing I had to fill-out on my own time. BUT I turned that into the trainer and he said I passed... (I'll have to verifry that on Tuesday, my job certification is set to run out in a couple weeks). Now there is system computer change at my work, which means all of our invintory has to be re-barcoded, which means managment has okayed all overtime requests through the end of the month, and are expecting us to stay late to help with the conversion. Sure I'm all for extra money, but my writing is important too. Just wish it paid the bills so I could life that albatross of my neck.
I'll bet you get sick of hearing all these update and lack of progress on the novel. We live in such McDonald's mindset:
I wan't something to consume right now!
But what about quality? These days McDonald's isn't know for serving up gormet food. It's burgers and fries, and very good burgers and fries either. I swear everytime I eat there I feel sick afterwards. Is any of their food even biodigrable? That's up for debate. Heck in a few year we'll probably find out that the packing material outside of the McDonalds food products had more natural nutrition in them.
The longer I'm at this the more it had become more abundantly clear to me that most laymen (people who aren't writers) don't get all the hard work that goes into writing. They are consumers. They want to consume, and would rather really not know how the cook prepares their meals. It's like would you rather hear about how to make a creme brulee, or just eat one and finish it off with a good cognac!
That's my favorite desert right now, creme brulee with a good congnac. And I like it hot! I've been at places that serve a creme brulee cold, and trust me it's not as good! Now I'm not a big propent of a flaming creme brulee presentation. If you serve it to me with the top on fire, I'm like cool nice visual. But what I care about is how it tastes when I eat it. And I prefer it hot!
McDonalds ain't got no creme brulees.
Even the deserts they got, they do the best they can to fuck them up. Don't believe me? Just look at their milkshake machine. What the fuck is going on there with all those tubes?! Whatever that white liquid that's coming out really is, it isn't ice cream. BUT if you're hungry for a quick desert, they can whip one of those bad boys out in a jiffy!
Okay, so I've made at least an attempt to justify myself. Where do I go from here? In my heart of hearts I really feel I need to get away from stressing over writing "the perfect line" and just try to shore the story up some in the later chapters. I got a TON of new ideas for chapter 16, and a lot of new ideas for the 3rd heroine love interest in the story. NO, that's not the Taylor Swift character, I've got that one nailed. Rather this third heroine is like Mother Teresa meets Princess Leia...
So much to do. Well, at least I'm not bored--and I'm not giving up on this blog either! Right now as I type this in I'm waing for my incoming pictures off my smart phone to come in, then I'm planning on opeing up a new page with picture of me, my family, and my house. I haven't taken this picture yet, but wait till you see the picture of the inside of our garage. YEARS ago my dad built this garage, but he never quite finished it, and never got back to it. So now it's in a state of incompletion AND it doesn't have power run to it. I would LOVE to run power to it, but I don't have the money for a project like that, I fingure it would run somwhere between 3 and 5 grand to do. Hey, electricians don't come cheap. When licenced electricians come to your house the meter's running and you're expected to pay!
Anywho, lots going on in my life right now so please pray for me. Besides all this I'm also working on repairing my mom's range. We had an elelectrial surge on Satruday, afterwhich time the broiler on our oven stayed on all the time. During the Seahawk game I troubleshoot the problem back to a master board that controls this 4 burner range and oven. Gotta purchase a replacement board. To get my mom through I pulled one of the leads off the broiler element so it would never recieve the 220 VAC and get hot. Besides that I also need to buy a new, long-bladed chainsaw for our house. We live on 5 acres of old Alder trees that are starting to come down. Thus we need a chainshaw to cut that shit up when it becomes lawn litter.
Never a dull moment. So continue to tune in, by the end of the week I SHOULD have that picture gallery up and running. And in case you missed it there was a point to this post. It's quality over quantity. And I think as time goes on that's going to be something that rings true: people would rather have you be great once, then have you available for mass consumption where they evenually get sick of you.
- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA
P.S. Had a wierd Saturday. Was all geek up to watch Amy Schumer host Saturday Night Live, BUT I had to work AND suddenly the station it was set to be broadcast on was blacked out by the cable company who supplies my house. Sooo I went to a bar after work and watched Amy's night on SNL untill the Weekend Update Segment began. Had a hard time hearing everything in the bar room environment, but from what I did hear I wasn't too impressed with Amy's showing. Her monologue wasn't that funny, nor were any of skits she was in that good. Too bad, I was really pulling for her to. And from what I saw that girl is really going to have to watch her weight. Trust me, Amy, you're mid-30s are a dangerous time when you can really start to pack on the pounds--if you're not on a stringent execersise regimen.
I still hold out hope that Amy's not done yet, and still has some entertaining tricks up her sleeve. Will be interesting to see where she goes from this point going forward. Even when I rip her, can't help but love her as evidence by the shameless promotion above.
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