Has it Really Been 2 Months?

Yes.  Yes it has.  The quick update is Thanksgiving, Christmas, a week in California, a week in South Carolina, 6 weeks of 60 hour weeks, 1 trial, a failed attempt at NaNoWriMo, my 21 year old stepson coming back to live with me, and, well, a New Year.

So, more on each in detail a bit later, but for now I wanted to post my New Years Resolutions.  For me at least its not the typical half-baked attempt at change that falls by the wayside by February, but more a codification of things I've wanted to take control of and change for awhile now.

(You might notice a theme about use of time, too...)

2010 New Year Resolutions 
(1) Write, write, and then write some more at least for 20 minutes a day.   
(2) Edit. Take an hour or two on the weekend to revise what has been already been written.   
(3) Keep writing blog updated.  Participate more in writing conversations.   
(4) Take the time to be creative. Use an hour or so a night to be productively creative.  Do it instead of just watching TV.  
(5) Get Gym membership and work out at least 3 days a week.  By the end of 2010 be able to do the P90 series workouts.   
(6) Powerwalk the dogs for at least 30 minutes every night, regardless of weather or how "tired" I am.   
(7) Be mindful of eating.  Think about what I am about to eat, and why I am about to eat it.  Make everything I eat a conscious decision. Save "bad" eating for when I am with friends instead of when I am alone.   
(8) Be mindful of the money I spend.  Don't spend money frivolously, understand that there are times when I simply have to say no to going out with friends, even if it might be embarrasing.   
(9) Invest more time in contacting old friends and family.   
(10) Don't shy away from confrontations when they are necessary.  Also, do not provoke confrontations if they are not necessary.  i.e. do the unpleasant tasks that feel like work but still need doing.   
(11) Get the sleep I need.

 

A Prologue of Paradoxes and Extant Confession

Hello world.

Science Fiction, SciFi, is full chocked full of stories involving time travel.  Some are funny, some are sad, most or complicated, and all to one extant or another deal with the idea of paradoxes.  After all, it is within the realm of the paradox that the greatest potential for conflict, drama, and character lies.

As a kid I used to think how cool a time machine would be.  I could watch the armies of the Roman Empire sweep across the European continent, view the dinosaurs in their majesty, or watch humanities descent with the ver popular "Fast-Forward Button."  Or to the future, to the Stars, to "stange new worlds, new life, and new civilizations;" or to see whether our Nations crossroads leads to a Utopian paradise, or Dystopian nightmare.

But I'm older now, and a little wiser.  And what I would actually use that Time Machine for is to go back in Time and kick the Young Me in the ass.  Tell him to quit wasting the disposable income when he had it on fast-food and always eating out.  To take chances, but not the stupid ones, and, most of all, I'd tell him that if he absolutely had to day-dream, the very least he could do would be to write them the Hell down so at least He would have something to show for his imagination.

"Hello world," is the classic, some would say, "cliched" first program all new coders to a language write.  It is a program whose sole function is to write the words, "Hello" and "world."  It is a starting point, a foundation.  It is that which you need in order to build upon it; and it is what i always walked away from.  I had the time, the money, and the interest to take programming classes 10-15 years ago.

Yet I never did.

I wanted the programs in my head working now, but all the programming classes required prerequisites.  I didn't want to wait that long, so I stubbornly refused to take them.  Which meant, that I never did end up taking those coding classes, which means that, it's still on the list of things I need to learn; only I no longer have the time, nor the money. So yeah, Young Me, that's an ass-kicking.

The same is true of writing as well.  I never wanted to be one of those people who spent my time at Writer's Workshops.  To be fair, some of this was due to my distaste for the few published authors I met in College, but that is a far larger digression, and one worthy of its own entry.  So I dreamed; I created intricate worlds, fascinating plots, and rich, full characters.  And I left them, for the most part, completely and utterly locked in my head.

Until now.

I realize some of what I was doing.  Some of the deep-seated insecurities that led to self-sabotage.  That some of the procrastination and laziness was really avoidance of the difficulty.  And, most of all, how I let fear make my decisions without ever having manifested itself.  So, now that I have realized these things, it is time to change them.

This blog is part of that.  It is my own spot on the web on which I can share my struggles, at least as best I can.  I can also share my observations about writing in specifically, and the larger craft of Storytelling in general.  Mix in some Whisky, my fascination with the fairer sex, and all of the sudden you have yourself a blog!  And, most importantly, an external means of accountability to help enforce discipline.  (Which is also worthy of an entry in its own right.)

Finally, as for why the opinion of a professed slacker is worth anything, who is the more honest; he who has confessed his sins, or he who is yet denying them?