Writing through tough times, Part II

The world is a funny place - both funny ha-ha, and funny peculiar. In this case it's the peculiar part that I'm addressing. (Ever notice that the last half of peculiar is Liar? Hmmmm.)

Anyway, the job hunt has taken a very fast and very interesting side road. And it happened lots faster than I expected. I got a job. Boom! Just like that. Well, with a lot of help from my friends. It helps to have friends. As Malcolm Gladwell said in his book THE TIPPING POINT, connections to other people are often the way to success. Or something like that.

Bottom line, I'm now an official Consultant. For a small company that wants to do business with the Federal Government. And I start on Monday!

Which brings me around to the writing thing again. Remember in my last blog I mentioned having all this free time to write? Well, it seems that the universe had other ideas and I'm back to writing at night and in the wee hours of the morning. Which is more like scheduling meetings than just sauntering over to your computer with a mug of coffee or tea any old time you feel the urge to whip off a few quick paragraphs. No, it's more like work. In fact, it is work. Writers who produce pages a day and a book in 4 months, have to write every day, whether they're in the mood or not. Butt in chair, hands on keyboard (or pencil/pen in hand and paper at the ready) and then WRITE.

A colleague once told me not to worry if what I was writing was crap, just get the words on the screen. You can always go back and edit. Interestingly, the mere act of putting words into sentences tends to wake up the old creative muse and once the juices are flowing, well, good things happen.

So, new job. The cats are happy; now they don't have to go on a diet. I'll continue to write. I may not get to 10K words a day, but I might make it to 1K.

(If you haven't read any of Gladwell's books - THE TIPPING POINT, OUTLIERS, and BLINK - I would recommend them. Interesting, and different, ways of looking at the world.)