A Change of Pace
Sometimes I feel like the things I want to do in life are all pulling at me at once. In all different directions, of course, turning me into a stretched mess of hardened silly putty that has bits of the Sunday comics still embedded on its skin.
In my life there are several things I want to be doing right now, all with seemingly the same priority. I want to excel in my job at work, I want to create a thriving web community, I want to develop all sorts of software, I want to build up my World of Warcraft characters to be the best they can be, and I want to write the next great American novel. The problem is that I don’t have enough time in the day to do it all, just like everyone else out there reading this.
Well, I’m going back to the original goals I set out for myself when I was young. I had five: To excel as a computer scientist, to publish poetry, to write a successful and popular novel, to create meaningful music, and to have a happy and healthy family.
The first one and the last one I think can sit comfortably with a big checkmark next to them. I have a great job as a computer programmer making more money than I ever anticipated given my history. With my wonderful wife, I have a great family that has more than met my goal and expectations several times over.
The other goals still remain, and I’m starting to feel the pull. I did have a poem published in a small anthology in the late 1990’s, but I don’t think that counts. I most definitely haven’t formed a rock band, jazz clarinet quartet, or even a dueling banjo group. But I think I can put poetry and music aside for the moment and save those for another part of my life.
What I’ve really been feeling the pull to do is to write. I think what started it was posting an interactive story thread on my World of Warcraft guild’s forums. A group of us take turns writing part of a story that we make up as we go. The story has grown into something very interesting, and it is giving me a bug to write. I haven’t sat down to write anything serious in a good long while, and I think I am overdue for a spattering of words to come pouring out of my hands, through the keyboard, into the computer, and onto paper somehow.
If I do this, though, I want to be serious about it. Obviously I can’t start writing full-time or anything, but I can curb time spent playing video games, working on freelance programming project, and other things that currently occupy my time. I can instead spend some evenings writing, reading, doing more writing, research, reading about writing, and so on. If I obsess over writing like I do about World of Warcraft, I’ll be sure to succeed.
Of course, there are some people reading this blog and thinking, “He can’t write. Just look at how bad his grammar is. That sentence structure is atrocious! And his spelling is lazy!” Well, screw you with something sharp and painful. I’m not writing for you and I hope you don’t read any of my works. I will be writing for myself as a way to create, to tell a story, and to improve my communication skills. Neener, neener, neener.
I plan on doing a lot of writing. Short stories, little blurbs of creative goo, creative sentences, full-length novels, and more. My ultimate goal is to finally get over my block and finish a novel. Then I’ll try submitting it to several places and start my collection of rejection notices. Wish me luck!