13 nov 01

I'm a few thousand words behind schedule for my novel, but I'm trying not to worry about it just yet. Last night I brought my "new" laptop to Smokey's with me, thinking I could crank out a couple thousand words, but my brain stalled. At one point my brother sat opposite me at the table and said it was just like 1997 again, my senior year of college (and his freshman year) when he would come visit me at the cafe and I'd be working on my thesis. Apparently that year he most often saw my face bathed in the light of my little computer. Ah, those were the days. Maybe I should have been keeping index cards for this project as well, instead of my small notebook with cryptic phrases scribbled inside. Not that it's too late to start. I've been rereading a lot of old journal entries (the book kind, not these kooky web things) and random bits I've typed up over the past few years, looking for material, and I've come to the conclusion that as much as I complain about being stressed out by the degree to which I've overcommitted my time to various projects, it sure beats spending scads of time wallowing and/or seething, which appears to be how I used pass the hours. Though I sure did write a lot more then.

[Editor's note: Though the author did in fact participate in wallowing and seething for certain stretches of time in the past, she did not engage in these activities at the exclusion of other pasttimes. It was not unusual to catch her taking a walk, for example. Also, the author did not mean to imply that she no longer wallows or seethes. In fact, we have witnesses to attest to the fact that she was wallowing this past Sunday for approximately two hours.]