Day Two: Fighting Off Evening Distractions

It is an uncommon treat for me to be released from work before ten at night. When it happens the natural inclination is to socialize. It is hard to go home to the emptiness that is my apartment and focus on things I really need to do. This includes writing. I love to write and will write about anything. Everyday, no matter what happens in my life I find time to write something. Unfortunately, sometimes that something has nothing to do with my novel.

Lives Lived is a wonderful project and I love it dearly. However, loving something and being able to control it are two different things. It can be very frustrating to not have the right connection for scenes or to not be able to write events the way that you see them in your head. I despise failure and every time I feel like something in the story falls short I feel like I have failed. So, when a very handsome guy asked, “What are you doing tonight?” I responded “Nothing.” Which technically is a lie because I am doing something very important and even the guy that I am crushing on should not come between me and the manuscript. Luckily God intervened and that handsome devil decided to go home.

The next obstacle would come when my phone rang. On the other end my best buddy issued an invitation to watch a ball game at his place. A couple of friends sitting around his newlywed constructed, cozy living room. I pictured myself sinking down into the soft, warm cushions of his couch. Surely I would have a beer in hand, maybe some festive high calorie food and a nice flat screen television to watch the game on. It would be a great time with some wonderful friends.

But I had to say no. I love my friends and I want to socialize and be with them but I want this novel published more. Not just more than I want to hang out but more than I want anything else in the world. I want to be a writer and nothing else. If I cannot have a family, get married, lose weight, be insanely rich, be loved or live to be 100, fine. I just want to be a writer.

This morning I was able to get out of bed much easier. I was running details through my mind by 7:30 even though I did not get out of bed until 8:11. My mind was in the right place and I was eager to get back to the computer. In this short time that I have been focused on writing and organizing the narrative the way it needs to be epiphanies have come to me. Of course there are times when the epiphanies pan out and times when they do not. That is okay, as long as they continue to come.

Today the schedule is a bit altered. I worked at 10:45 this morning so I had to end the morning session very early. That is okay because tonight is wide open. It is not ideal for me to break things up but I stayed productive this morning.

I am working on publishing my first novel but technically it will not be my first publication. In fact, I am thinking about publishing a second chapbook of poetry. I am not a great poet but I love poetry and I’ve written it so why the heck not? I have not decided on that yet. The other thing I can do is build my web presence. Everything is online. I don’t have a good website out there for people to view my work and that is just a shame. I need to get my work out there into the world. So this morning, in-between yoga and getting ready for work, I worked on getting some web stuff going.

Now I have the evening. This morning I was thinking about what the school looked like. What type of windows did it have? How many floors? What did the grounds surrounding the school look like? If you were sitting in a desk day dreaming out into the world around the school what did you see? Details, details. I need more details…..

So here I am. I've prepared a simple dinner of whole wheat spaghetti with a simple pesto sauce. I've cracked my one and only beer for the day and I am ready to get going again. Yes, it is only day two but all journeys begin with just a few steps.