A quick update

My apologies.

I really need to get back into posting and such.  And writing and all that.  I've got plenty of excuses, some of them are even good ones, but I need to make writing a priority.  So here's to redoubling my efforts

Time Vampires

There are lots of little things that eat the day away. On their own they don't seem like that much, but put them all together and a picture forms of a ravenous creature intent on sapping every second of every day. They are Time Vampires and here are some of mine:


Work: Now yes work is necessary to pay the bills, and as far as jobs go I don't have the worst. But a full time job is nice chunk of time out of one's day. I just think about all that time I'm being productive for someone else when I could be writing. It's frustrating.



TV: Because I just can't miss... well actually there is no good reason or excuse for this vampire. Most of the so called "must watch TV" I consider "must avoid TV." There are scant few shows I actually go out of my way to watch, and even those I normally watch on Hulu. Ah, blessed Hulu. The great thing about it is the liberation to watch just about any show at any time with with a grand total of four or six commercials. That's commercials total, not six commercial breaks with thirty commercials each. Do the math. Ah cursed math.

(And this is how math makes me feel.(Warning animated cartoon stick man violence, very graphic. I am not kidding. Click at your own risk.))

Friends: They'll be there for me. Even when I might be better off without them, working on my story. I know this sounds ungrateful, rude, and a bit anti-social, but friends do distract me from what I should be doing. I can't count the number of times my friends have pulled me into a fountain and forced me to dance the night away (like I'm was always stuck in second gear.)


Laziness: I was gonna write something here, but....



I so tired.



Gaming: I start up a game and I'm having a good time when suddenly... I look up at the clock and it's midnight. The game just Rip Van Winkled me. I hate to say anything bad about gaming on account of it giving so much good to me. But it does take time and money, and time is money, so it takes money squared. And dang it I've started talking math again. You can never be too careful with math.







You can never be too careful with math.

An Unfulfilled Promise

I am way behind schedule. Back when I was a kid I thought that by the time I was as old as I am now I'd be a published author. Oh how I've let the little guy down.

This trip down memory lane makes me ponder the reason of why I actually write.

The year was 1993 and I was in elementary school. To say that I did not enjoy school would be an understatement. I wanted out, and I was desperate to find some way, any way, to quit school. Little me hatched what he thought was an ingenious scheme. For whenever he balked about going to school and asked the grown ups why they almost inevitably responded that I would need school to get a job.
"Why do I need a job?" I would ask.
"To make money."
Money, I found out at an early age, was the be all and end all of life. If I had it I could do anything, without it I had to play by the world's rules.

My dad had told me about this kid who collected stamps. He got so good at buying and selling them that left school. He was rich and got driven around by a chauffeur all day, he never even got his licence.

So my brilliant plan was to find something that I could do that would make me money. Just like the stamp kid. Little did I know (oh how ominous those words are) the path that this plan would set me upon.

How was I a mere grade school kid supposed to make money. I wasn't even old enough for a paper route. The answer came to me rather quickly. I would write. It was something that I already liked to do so I figured I could use it to get out of school. It all seemed so simple. But I had to make sure that my parents would let me quit school once I made my millions. Parents can be obnoxious about things like this. "Sorry son we don't care if you can afford to buy yourself a small island your still going to attend school."

And so I made them sign this:

They signed it. A sort of promissory note. Oh I had them now.

Or so I thought.

It was my promise that never got fulfilled. A promise I made to myself to get out of school.

Sometimes I wonder if I write because I really want to or if I have just hardwired it into myself because of my desperate need to escape school. Even now that I'm out of school that need to write is still there. I can't help but wonder if it's genuine.

But then I remember that I did indeed write a book. Way back before the promissory note. Back before I knew how to write. It was an illustrated story about a presidential election between Fire and Water. I still have it somewhere, I'll have to dig it up one day. Remembering it makes me think that maybe I really am a born storyteller. I mean if I was telling stories before I knew words that should count for something right?

At any rate both these events get to the heart of the question of why I write. They aren't the whole answer. I don't know if I can put the whole answer into words. It is something that is felt and thought and spoken. But this is part of it.