Let’s chalk it up to being smack dab in the middle of the novel. Chapter 13 has brought with it a malaise of epic proportions (seemingly), an overwhelming sense of monotonous pointlessness. It really reveals how dependant I am on some kind of positive feedback mechanism, and how much of a bummer it is when I get tired of the rewards themselves.

It’s the deep kind of funk when you can’t even imagine what could make you happy, and you can’t point to an obvious issue that is causing you grief. There’s nothing wrong, per se, just nothing going particularly well. But even that kind of generalization is misleading, because things are going well. Max is happy, healthy, learning and growing, and he delights me several times a day. There are elements of my parenting and being a role model that need some sprucing up, but I’m still the best dad for him.

And in the long-term, big picture, things will work out. I should look at this time spent writing as my apprenticeship. Like an apprentice woodworker, I’m going to make a lot of ugly doors before I make a beautiful cabinet. Like a plumber-in-training, I’m going to ankle-deep in poop until I learn to  doublecheck my work.  No one writes a great novel without spending the time learning how, and screwing it up along the way.

 

The common wisdom is that its easy to go to a gym for the first month. The commitment comes in to play when the monotony sets in. Well, I think I’m hitting my first gut check point for all this blogging rigmarole.

Keep in mind that I am churning out these nuggets of mental amusements every two days, and writing a 1500 to 2000 word book chapter on the alternating days.  This creative exercise is building up my tolerance for writing everyday and producing something, despite being in a tired/sick/hungry/horny mood.

Unfortunately, this is all first edition stuff, with no editing or second thoughts. Indeed, turning off my internal editor is a big part of what I’m learning to do. But even though I know this is all going according to plan, I’m getting a little weary of the whole thing. Grind, grind, grind. Hopefully even my dubious work is entertaining on some level.

Here’s the stuff left over in the ‘week in review’ bucket:

1. Besides my family, my two true loves right now are fresh garlic and Steven Stamkos. One is pungent and delicious, the other is producing at least a point a game and is single-handedly keeping my fantasy hockey teams out of last place.

2. Fallout:New Vegas is the first game that I’ve ever played where I liked it less and less the longer I played it. Most games that stink show me their stinkiness in the first hour and I bail out. The glaring technical errors and overall bad software development only really broke my spirit after 30+ hours of play. Which adds to my rage, since I spent all of that time to find myself in a crappy game that kept breaking. It even froze during the end of game cutscene. Weak. I was only finishing for the sake of being done with it forever, and it couldn’t even manage to leave gracefully.

3. If you like the Trews, I cannot help you. You do not like music. Please put on your headphones and don’t tell me what you’re listening to.

4. I used to think that the Eddie Van Halen line of guitars was just a cheap cash-in. Now that I’ve read a bit more about the serious guitar hardware tinkering and modification he did to achieve his sound, I have revised my opinion. More than just being physically gifted in terms of guitar playing, Eddie spent hundreds of hours soldering, filing, re-wiring, and testing, not to mention the time spent actually practicing guitar. Respect!

5. Oh yeah, I’m twittering too (@spankules). Becuase I don’t spend enough time put nonsense on the internet.

As I pulled into the car port from an evening out, I saw a teenage boy moving quickly out from between my car port and my neighbors. I automatically disapproved of him, naturally, because he is a teenager and he was wearing what I think was a Blue Jays hat. By the time I had the car parked safely, he was off into the darkness.

As I got out of the car, I tried to determine how alarmed and outraged I should be. The fully paranoid option would be to assume he was about to sneak into my house and threaten my sleeping family. Objectively, that’s very unlikely. He may have been a friend and suitor to the teenage Columbian temptress who lives on the other side of us, and he was hurrying away after visiting her. A middle of the road interpretation could be that he was doing a little car hopping in hopes of finding a little car treasure (though 10:15 on a Friday is poor timing for petty larceny). We have found our messy pile of crap in the car moved about once before, so it’s plausible.

In the big picture, I wonder what the average reasonable interpretation of the situation is. Do most people assume the kid is a no-good punk, or do they just see a skinny guy who’s under-dressed and trying to get home before he gets in trouble? the more I think about it, the more I settle on the amorous suitor version. At the very least it leaves me some peace of mind.

In moustache news, we are quickly approaching the end of November, and I will not be renewing my moustache’s lip lease. The itchiness has begun in earnest, and it’s curling into my mouth. I hope you have all spent time thinking about the prostates around you because of my moustache, and maybe even donated a buck or two to the cause.