Sometimes You Get the Bear...

Hi. Remember me?

If you're still bothering to check this blog, I appreciate your patience. It's not like I've kept up with the non-stop witty and insightful commentary that was my stock-in-trade in the salad days.

Why is that? Well, as much as I'd like to blame computer games, I usually do most of my posting at work (like I am now). And I have been pretty busy with work.

In fact, I recently found out that the search for another programmer/analyst here has been put "on hold" due to a hiring freeze. Isn't that super? I'd try to spin that into something positive, like "job security," if not for the fact that my company is absolutely in love with outsourcing.

Oh well.

On another note, I choked on NaNoWriMo for the third time in a row. This time I only ended up about 8100 words in before I decided it really wasn't interesting me anymore. For that, at least, computer games are at least partially to blame. But I haven't managed to finish a 30 day novel since the first one, and I think a large part of it is that feeling that, "I've done this already."

After all, the end product of a 30 day novel-writing blitz is rarely something you're going to be proud of, except for the pride of actually having finished the damn thing. I've finished one, so I keep wanting to write something worth writing and I keep finding that the 30 day novel process ends up taking whatever decent ideas I have and grinding them into a meaningless word count exercise.

This time around, I really didn't prepare for it. The companion book is called, "No Plot? No Problem!" which, I guess, is accurate if you're just pumping out word count, but it's really not interesting enough to keep me on track. It feels a lot less like writing a novel than like doing homework, and I'm too old for homework.

"So take your supposedly good ideas and write a novel!" you might suggest. Maybe I will, but I'm starting to suspect that long form writing isn't really in the cards for me. Maybe short stories, I'm not sure. I think I need a little time to form some kind of perspective about the whole thing.

Plus, I have a sandwich to eat.