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| Can you see where the weekends are? |
Hither I come, returning to my cyber home, undoubtedly looking as dusty and bedraggled as I feel. Over 27 July days (nights, mostly), I churned out 50,980 words for National Novel Writing Month - Summer Camp Edition. I hear you - and the answer is yes. Something is very much wrong with me. I enjoy the pressure that these novel writing months put on me. I'm quite comfortable being wordy. Obviously. And wordy I was, including 12,000 words during the final weekend.
So. Over the past eleven days, I haven't written a word, and I haven't looked at what I wrote in July. "Undead Drunk" is like a strange dream I had - full of booze and sex and snark - and a few zombies. I've rested. I've relaxed. I've watched a lot of baseball. I'm watching baseball right now.
But here's the thing: What I should be doing, as always, is something else. I now have SEVEN first-draft novels, and a couple of them might actually have potential. I should be doing rewrites and edits, and reading "Getting Published - For Dummies." Failing that, I should be writing something else - something new, something that, if not marketable, is at least a worthwhile exercise. Failing that, I should be reading any of the half-dozen books in my to-read pile. I should be finding a Jayson Werth garden gnome on eBay for my brother, who got to the Nats game too not-early-enough, on Tuesday, and missed out. I should be working on my legal defense strategy for any of the myriad of lawsuits pending against me over that TV pilot I supposedly stole from Patton Oswalt and George Barry. I should be trying on shorts. I should be having someone take a look at that bullet wound. It only grazed me, but it's awfully angry-looking - I'm worried that it might be infected. Of course, I should also be shopping for new carpeting. It's been over two weeks since the neighbors' washing machine flooded *our* dining room, and we ripped out the carpet in a fit of pique (And because we knew it was the only way to get us to replace the stuff. We've been talking about it for a couple of years, now.), and there it sits. Stupid concrete slab ghetto townhouse. I should be figuring out what I want to do with this blog. The Hobo Posts probably deserve their own blog, but that just sounds like work. I suppose I could also be reading all my wonderful bloggy friends' stuff, and leaving them warm, supportive, and constructive feedback. I should be emailing my handful of wayward friends. I should be sleeping, perhaps. [Baseball is over. Stuff happened - what can I say?]
But I'm not. Instead, I am dithering. I think about all of the above and so much more. And I think and think and think, and I come up with all manner of brilliant solutions to it. It's like My Lost Revelation - gone before I can act. It's not simple procrastination, though. You ditherers know what I mean. It's all there, but for the actual action. Thinking about stuff is SO much easier than doing stuff.
Summer will end, and I'll not have even reread last year's novel - the one with potential - let alone edited, punched up, rewritten, fixed, sold, or otherwise pushed it toward publication.
Summer will end, and this wound will still be oozing, the legal team will have fired ME, and the garden gnomes will be gone.
Summer will end, and the house will still be in dire need of paint, carpeting, and if I'm being honest, cleaning.
Summer will end, and I'll not have reestablished connection with my very few friends, nor will I have rejoined the blogosphere - or even my teensy corner thereof.
yawn.
Summer will end, and that thumping in the closet will persist. The thing that's not a bunny living under the shed will have had babies, and because I work at HSUS, there'll be nothing I can do about them. So much for cutting the grass, I guess. The Nats will have found a way to lose the NL East, but the O's will have clinched the AL East, and that will just have to do. The 'Skins will have won all four of their preseason games, setting us up for the disappointment of another 10+ loss regular season, full of hypocritical bitching about the team's stupid name. Yes - it's the 1890s N-word for native Americans. If every non-native person who claims to be offended by it gave a dollar to a native American Nation tomorrow, we'd have the wealthiest indigenous population on the planet - but hypocrisy, as we know, is the greatest luxury. Just ask the Disposable Heroes of Hip-hoprisy.
((YAWN))
Anyway. Summer will end, and that's a shame. But that's the great thing about not doing what you should be doing. Fall will come, and all those things will be there, patiently waiting for you. Well, my gunshot wound might not be patient, exactly, but still. It will be there. And if we still don't have carpeting, yet, then we can store perishables on the cold concrete floor, and save all kinds of money by unplugging the fridge.
((YAWN))
And there it is. The second ((YAWN)). I think it's time to tell you about another outrageously weird hobo, before you become as bored with all of this as I am. Next time, that is - assuming that I'm not busy pitching "Undead Drunk" or "Falling Off The Universe" or "Buck Mope Catches The Westbound" to a big-time agent, somewhere...
Thanks for bearing with me, whilst I work this out...
Naturally, this post was prompted by my friends at Studio 30 Plus. This week, our writing prompt, "Summer will end" came from a haiku by Laura at Bird Of The Forest.
