Archive for November, 2004
Needed Update
Posted by smokingpen in On Writing Projects, Personal Entries, religion, siblings, work on November 21, 2004
Hi. I’ve been busy. By busy I mean I have been insanely busy. About three, maybe three and a half, weeks ago I said to Debbie, “I can write a book by Thanksgiving.” Since no one except for me and Andy (that would be reading this) really knows Debbie, that was probably the wrong thing to say. She threw down the gauntlet and challenged me to do what I was saying I could do, and had been saying I could do for some time. Fact of the matter is that I have started and set aside several books (and by books I mean tens of thousands of words written) over the past year or two because I wasn’t personally in a place to write things. With all that said, my life has been one continuous round of work, work, work, and, uhm, work.
What all of this really means is that I go to school full time – and am now changing some personal plans on where I will be attending come next fall, I work full time, and I have been trying to tackle the feat of writing a solid first draft of a novel in the hours between school, work, sleep, and my church responsibilities (i.e. councilor in the elder’s quorum).
The thing that has happened, of late, that really bothers me (and I am not bothered) is that I have tried to toss dating (on occasion) into the mix and finding a suitable car for the money I have (on hand) that I can invest in said. The car, just so that people know, is my means of further establishing some measure of independence and personal worth over having to bum rides places from Andy and Debbie. Fortunately, since getting out here, my needs have been pretty small, light-weight really, but with dating, work, school, church, and the feeling that I need to start mentally moving in a slightly different direction than I had been – along with the writing, school, and work – I am a little swamped. Sunday roles around and after church I pretty much wind down, try to nap if time permits, and pretty much don’t think of anything because that is the one day of the week that I don’t do school work, I don’t work, and (gasp!!!) I don’t write. It’s become a sort of sacred day of literal rest for me. In truth, eventually I would like to get to the point where I don’t use my computer or get online either.
Now, I know that this is my place to tell you all about my life, about writing, about the future and what I believe it holds for me – as well as what is happening in other avenues of life; however, life has to change slightly before that can happen. Truth told, I am literally searching for a miracle to happen so that I can slow down just a little and focus on what I keep thinking I need to focus on. The fact that my life was tossed into the stratosphere this past week first by the girl I went out with (did you know I have a lot of unresolved, personal issues (and no, she doesn’t either)?) and secondly by an unexpected revelation from my brother Justin that was confirmed by my father and then, once I can get down the broad details (e.g. that “it” happened) he decides that after being closed mouthed about it for 40 or so years he is going to tell all of the siblings. As a result of things like that I have not written this week, I’ve been reticent to go to school and do the necessary work there, and going to work (outside of my spending three days sick in bed – literally) I’m now a week behind on my deadline with Debbie.
You see, the cool thing there – and I truly believe this may be the key to what is happening right now – is that Debbie and Andy have told me that they will float me for a couple of months if I can show them that I have a solid first draft of a publishable book. The book, just so you know, is highly publishable and is somewhere around 55% to 65% of the way done (first draft wise) I just have to get back to work on it. Given that I have/had some personal issues, I have to deal with seeing my father in an entirely different light, and, well, life is pretty much always throwing me curve balls when the expectation is supposed to be fast balls or knuckles or I should stop trying to write a baseball analogy, I think I am handling things pretty well.
Oh, and if I don’t update every so often and someone, for whatever reason, logs into my account (Jack) then the screen will show only the latest entries that are not older than two or three weeks… I don’t remember how long. Give me another two weeks and we will see how well I can update and keep people informed.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
Real Heroes Fly
November 1st, 2004
Posted by smokingpen in East v. West, act of writing, religion, work on November 1, 2004
Today marks November 1st and I have been trying to think about what’s changed and how things have changed in relation to my life and life in New England.
The first thing that comes to mind is that I was called to be the second councilor in the Elder’s Quorum presidency. Andy, I live with Andy and Debbie, is the President and a gentleman neither of us knows is the first councilor. He told me, when the call was extended to me and I called him on the floor for playing out that he hadn’t called me into the Elder’s Quorum, that he felt very serious about having me as the second councilor, the his initial response was not to have me in his presidency at all, but that he felt very strongly about having me as a councilor.
I also discovered that there was a forest behind the house across 30 acres of field that remains mostly fallow and is allowed to grow to seed. This forest has a path that leads through the woods and ends at a quarry that sits like a scar on beautiful skin. The point in this is that I have found a place where I can walk and be alone.
What was really cool about this discovery is that I found that the quarry was dug down to the water table in a spot, and since it was at night, and since I had a flashlight on me, I started looking at the water and discovered something was living in the water. Something moved and raced away from the light, which had me thinking about Gollum from the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. As I kept looking whatever it was raced away from the shore, made some noise, and raced back – always keeping out of the light, which was really very frustrating.
I’ve also been working part-time (which is still four days a week) at the bookstore and requested that they bring me on full-time. Garth spoke to Paul who said there shouldn’t be a problem with that but had to check the house before he could make the decision. If I go full-time it will happen in the next couple of weeks.
Today, they had me working in Music all day long, and on top of that, I did re-shelves for the bulk of the day. What that means is that I took products that was had in other parts of the store, on displays, and got to put it back in place in the racks where it belongs, normally. Cheryl, music supervisor, was there and kept watching over me as I worked, which was a little weird, but she kept bringing up conversation topics that were interesting, but at the same time weird as I believe that she is married.
At lunch, as I was trying to work on some writing, there were four girls sitting in the break room who started peppering me with questions about what I was working on, why I typed so fast, why I thought I could get published, why now – to get published and write something, etc., that it was rather awkward. On top of that, I didn’t get any writing done, and really just sat there staring at a screen and only wrote crap.
It’s November 1st and things are going pretty well. I still like the east coast, New England, and what’s happening. In case someone is curious, I have no intention of moving west anytime in the foreseeable future.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
Real Heroes Fly