Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Laziness becomes me

I've been hit with one of my lackadaisical moods, where no matter how much I might want to, mentally, I can't get the heart going to do anything creative. I flit from this to that to something else and tell myself I really do need to buckle down and get to work on either a painting or a book or, once again, a script...and hours later I'm still telling myself. I make all sorts of excuses but the truth is I've done so much over the last few years, I'm a bit burned out.

Since Heritage Book Shop closed in August of 2007...just a little over four years ago? Wow. It seems like so much time has passed. Damn...I have done a lot. I wrote three scripts; rewrote four others; got 7 books published, with another one about to come out (and not a penny from royalties, yet); had a novella added to an anthology (which I was actually PAID for); moved huge distances, twice; prepped a magazine (with articles and interviews by me) that never made publication; did editing on 28 books (that I've only been partially paid for); written 60% of another novel...well, maybe 50% of it; and am having a short story printed in a literary journal. I even have fans! And that's on TOP of me working as a book packer for libraries and collections and book fairs AND learning a whole new freight forwarding job that's taken me all over the country...and having my mother die and taking on the support of my youngest brother.

Jeez...no wonder I'm brain dead. I need to do some serious re-fragging or dumping of files to clear out the memory base.

Still...I feel like I ought to be working harder. Maybe I'm a workaholic, of a sort. Or maybe I'm just tired of having two full-time jobs (writing being the one I'd rather keep, if I could make a living at it). I keep telling myself something's going to happen, soon. What, I don't know. I'd like to think it's a case of where I'll be discovered as the next Hemingway or Proust or even Jay McInerney (even though he's younger than me), or I'll win the lottery and never have to work, again. But I've had too much reality in my life to let those dreams get carried away. And yet...

What did someone say, once? Something like, "A young man sees life as opportunity, a middle-aged man sees it as tragedy, an old man sees it as farce." Looks like I'm reaching the farcical stage of my existence.

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