I'll Find My Sanity When I Find My Glory

I chopped twenty pages yesterday and wrote about two. I keep telling myself that I'll buckle down the next day, just sit and write for hours and hours and hours. But come the morning, I'm still groggy from the beer still in my system. I make myself some java and end up surfing the web for more hours and hours and hours.

If I didn't live in my own skin, I could tell myself follow the same routine I had when I was a lawyer - wake up at 7:40 a.m., get showered and dressed by 8:10, have my three cups of java, surf the web until 9:00 a.m. and buckle down until 8:00 p.m. But living in my own skin, I find that a lot tougher. When I was working in an office, I knew I had to be in the office or else no check. Now, I don't have to be anywhere. Plus, now that it's nearly three months since I left and I still have twice as much in my checking account than I had when I left the law the first time.

I guess this is a roundabout way of talking about motivation, to be more exact, my lack thereof. I should've been finished with my second novel by now instead of tearing it down and building it back up. I should be writing every single day.

There is a part of me, deep in that dark corner, that place where angels fear to tread, that thinks I'm not a real writer. Writers write everyday supposedly. Their muse is always there, whispering ideas in a neverending stream of creativity.

Then I think about my past. I think about Duke's creative writing program. Over 200 students submitted pieces of fiction each semester, only 15 were chosen. And just because you were chosen one semester didn't guarantee that you were accepted the next. I was chosen both times I applied. I take a look at this blog, and yeah, there's a lot of maudlin crapola in here, but there's some decent stuff in here as well. The Three Visit Barrier and A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action will make it in some form or another to the novel. And I think, OK, I have the tools. I just have to friggin' use them.

One of things that brings me down on a daily basis is this dip in the dating. I get on match.com and almost every profile reads "I need a man who is financially secure." Totally understandable - no chiqua wants a layabout mooching off her. But here I am, the checking account slowly draining, doing something most folks don't consider real work. I'm no mooch and have never been one, but try telling that to a chiqua as she deletes my e-mail. Now, the rational part of me realizes that I will not be happy with a woman who's bottom line in a relationship is money and work. That part also knows that L.A. is probably the best place to be a creative-type underemployed male (and definitely way better than Silicon Valley). Hell, there was a cute chiqua who e-mailed me while I was dating Bees Knees who thought it was really cool that I left the law to pursue writing. (Stupid me being a monogamous dater, cute chiqua was no longer a match.com member by the time the relationship with Bees Knees imploded.)

So, not all is lost. The sun is shining. I have some tunes on the headphones. Sigh.