The Good Stuff Comes in Rushes

Too cool. Not only is the world painted in brighter colors, but Internet Explorer has finally started working as I want it to. I found the Magic Setting that broke high-end browser functions like the better Blogger post editor and the security checking my bank does, and now all is well in browserland. Huzzah!

So anyway, looking forward to the Maine vacation beginning this Saturday. I'm reasonably certain I'll be able to update Brain Squeezings while out of town as I'm taking Tangy the iBook with me, but unsure I'll necessarily be in the mood to. Time will tell.

I Suppose I Need a Garret

Went and grabbed some writers-on-writing books from B&N this past Sunday on getting the creative juices flowing, to be read while I'm on vacation. I know, I know, reading isn't writing, but I find I do better at this stuff when I'm jazzed about it, and reading advice from Real Published People serves me well in that capacity.

The more I try to get away from writing the more it jumps out at me from behind corners and lets me know that it's not going away. I know in my heart of hearts that I don't want to be a programmer ten years down the road; since I have no training in elite carpentry (my third choice), I'm going to have to go for my second but more difficult choice, and that's collecting royalties for purchased written work. I love the idea of setting my own schedule, researching new stuff all the time (as responsible authors should), and --let's be honest-- receiving kudos and recognition for my work. I'm frightened half to death of the self-discovery that attends writing as it should be done, and the long, long journey from start to finish that any novel entails.

And yet, and yet, and yet. I live life at its most honest and cogent while writing. I explore my deepest nadirs and highest pinnacles, do my best thinking and feeling, deal best with the world in its broad expansiveness and pointillist detail. Sigh.

I envy Wendy her consistency in working on her novel, and congratulate her on overcoming whatever demons (great or tiny) were necessary to do it. I'm hoping to dredge up some fresh ideas and slather some grease on my own creative gears while in Maine, and build some momentum for the coming years of sitting at my own writing desk (currently covered with billz and disused computer partz), glowing LCD in front of me, weaving whatever threads I spin among whatever warp and woof I settle on.

I'm well aware that writing for a living is saturated with rejection notices, long painful hours of toil and the derision (or worse, apathy) of critics. I'm also aware that the writer who earns more than subsistence-level income is rare indeed. But what can I do, it won't go away.

-Rich