So, where you been?

Ramblings Post #327
Take a walk. A long slow walk from your home, from your phone, from the world really, the creature comforts and connectivity you know and look at who you really are. Look at yourself, without your friends or family, without your spouse or child, without your job or home. Imagine you're alone in the world and all you have to do is choose. If you don't choose to go back, then you have a problem. If you do choose to go back, then ask yourself what are taking back that is so valuable? When you know, it's time to head back. 

I haven't been updating this recently, much to my personal chagrin, because I got other stuff on my plate so to speak. I've been working, hustling if you will, to actually get some stuff done. Some of it personal, some of it professional, all of it worth my time. Even though the cattle drive I'm on doesn't seem to want to end, that's a good thing, but I'm carving out some time to get myself situated for better things.  

Although I've been writing a book for forever - No, not that one, the other one. No the other other one. Yeah, I know. So, in an effort to better myself I decided to do a kind of writer boot camp, and challenged myself by signing up for National Write a Novel Month. The goal was to write 50,000 words in 30 days, thus producing a short novel. It turns out the Great Gatsby is roughly just that long so idea makes sense, and 50,000 words is just a little less than 1,700 words per day. This should be doable was my thinking. So, I drew up an outline and on November 1st got started. That would be about where I left you with the exception of noting the new national nightmare.

I was good for a while, steadily working at it. Had a few makeup days where I needed 3,000 and 4,000 words, but in the end I did learn some things which were invaluable. And although I had to pull together roughly 8,000 words in those last three days, I made it over 51,000 with about 30 minutes to spare. Which when I looked at it, is about as many words as I've written on my two previous works in the past 18 months! So there's that. I've discovered I need to work faster. This new work isn't quite done yet though, still a few parts to fill in but I'll finally have something I haven't had in a long time: A completed first draft. Then I'll let it sit until after the second thing I've been working on. 

That second thing is a new certification, which sounds weird in my line of work. But I've talked to some colleagues and been to a few seminars, and it looks promising. So, now I'm looking at study material with an arched eyebrow. My current problem with this whole thing is the material looks so...inadequate. I kept thinking that the books I ordered would be larger and more substantial. And the test questions they all have appear to be so ...obvious. 

 

I want to say I already know most of this stuff. And you know what happens when you start thinking things like that? I get to the test and everything will look like it was written in German. Call it paranoia, call it looking for ghosts where there aren't any, but it's that little voice some where saying  DO MORE! So, even though I've got a good nut of material, I'm still seeking out more. 

 

I can't keep doing what was doing and expecting different results. 

New year, new me. 

Barkeep. A sparkling water please. With a bourbon chaser. What? Baby steps.