365 days of being a writer: day 286

I can't really count this as a writing credit, but what started as a little joke between a few friends on my Facebook page got some press today, which was exciting.

Today was my first day to commute downtown. I will say that I got one of my three goals for the day done. And also, I need to rethink the evenings. It is hard to write here after work. There are usually two TVs going and a bunch of food. If I go straight to my room, I'm anti-social. If I don't, I lose steam.

I'll work on it. Tomorrow, I take the second of three steps toward getting my eyes fixed. Scary? You betcha. But also so so very exciting!

365 days of being a writer: day 285

I worked on what I hope is my final re-write of the hummingbird essay. As I was going through, I focused on making the connections between the separate sections a little less vague. I spelled a few things out, because I forget to do that often. I also sent a follow-up question to one of my sources, here's hoping she responds in time for me to submit this thing one last time before summer.

The following interlude has almost nothing to do with "being a writer": Since it still counted as birthday weekend, I took in what was left of my to-sell-books and a pile of to-sell-CDs and DVDs to a local record/bookstore. They gave me an incredible deal and I picked up two more books from my reading list, a couple that weren't (Short Cuts, Dubliners, and The Road) and several movies (Short Cuts, Blade Runner, Run, Lola, Run, Ghost Dog, Life Aquatic and The Squid and The Whale). Who wants to come over and talk about short stories and watch movies?

Even though today was technically a holiday, I still got in a walk, did a Spanish lesson, and worked on my writing to-do list for at least 45 minutes. Let's call that WINNING.

365 days of being a writer: day 284

Happy Birthday to me!

I spent the afternoon at a bookstore: found a book by my one of next year's professors, and one by next year's visiting essayist. I also grabbed a disappointing magazine and a journal I want to get into at some point.

The disappointing magazine will remain nameless, but it is a "writer's magazine"--and yet, it is so full of vapid, basic advice (such as, 'need a market for your writing? try researching!') and with such a focus on marketing that it sort of breaks my heart.

And yet, how can I be ready to make this my career if I am not willing to accept that there is hustling and sales involved? That's sort of how art school killed being an artist for me. I really want the work to speak for itself. Is that unrealistic?

365 days of being a writer: day 283

The apartment is clean, the keys are handed in to the landlord. I don't live downtown any more. I was sad yesterday and couldn't sleep. It was a good little apartment, and a nice enough neighborhood. Already, I miss my commute, the coffee shops, at least one of the nearby neighbors.

I sat down tonight and wrote myself a cheesy letter. I will be turning 38 in the morning, or in a half an hour. I congratulated myself, gave myself some homework for the next month. Here's a summary:

* I gave myself permission to cut the Demand articles for the next month.
* Instead, each weekday morning, I will go on a 30 minute run/walk.
* Each evening, after work, I will come home and write for 45 minutes
* After writing, I will do 30 minutes of Spanish homework
* Weekends are free.

I'm trying this for a month, because living at my parents house can be like a writing retreat (granted, with a job in the middle of each day, but that's for the money--making the debt disappear).

This kind of structure has worked for me before, I think it can again. I'll let you know in a month.

365 days of being a writer: day 282

All day, loading a truck with too few people, then unloading it. Then loading it, then unloading it.

I feel like I am a terrible writer for not making the time to write today or yesterday. But I suppose I'll go with Tired Writer and try to do better tomorrow.



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365 days of being a writer: day 281

Everything was packed and the only thing written was a long rambling poem across a dozen boxes.

Boots & Coats
Bunch of Random SHIT
Immediate
MISC
Halloween and Kitchen and Tools
Sewing
Stuff from Bedroom
&c, &c

Tomorrow, we ride (across town)


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365 days of being a writer: day 280

No post last night as I packed up almost everything but the kitchen sink.

There are things I don't need that I can't let go of: an old box of pictures, an old box of drawings and paintings from art school, old boxes of little art works. Letters from you and me. Remember letters? I kept most of them. They are crammed in an old card catalog box. There's that box of old diaries and that book I painted all over when I had my first ever show at a gallery. Alex Lilly drew a steak in it and I was so happy.

I also hate to throw away utilitarian objects: rubber bands, twist-ties, paper clips. How much time has been wasted hunting for a paperclip to finalize that submission? Or a rubber band to loop-suture one thing against another?

I still need to pack my clothes and bathroom and there is a box worth of stragglers in the kitchen.

These are the things I will have for the next two months:

• Spanish books
• Giant thesaurus and some grammar/style books
• Reading list books
• Fibery works-in-progress: two sweaters, a pair of socks, arm warmers for a friend, shawl, and afghan
• Running/yoga gear: heart rate monitor, night light, visor, belt with pocket, mat
• Laptop, external drive, mouse
• Two notebooks
• Clothes, jewelry, toiletries

Those are really all the things I need ever, right? So what's with the ten million other boxes? How the hell did I fit 8 boxes of kitchen stuff into the world's smallest kitchen?

How can I ever let go of all those pictures, letters, paintings? Should I?

365 days of being a writer: day 279

Packing cook books, long sleeves, crockpot, coasters, book ends, water bottles, lingerie, wool socks, bubble bath, espresso cups, shells, rocks, knitting mags, drawing stuff, office supplies, blazers. All things I won't need until Wyoming.


Today, The Rumpus published an interview I did with my sister.

While I am stoked it's up, I'm pretty appalled at my terrible punctuation in the introduction. I know it's because I typed it the way I would say it, but (shudder). There usually isn't much copyediting online and I need to remember that. I've GOT to get better at commas and splices.

Back to packing.

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365 days of being a writer: day 278

Feedback requires distance, I think. Just like subsequent drafts.

So, I write today about nothing whatsoever even remotely related to hummingbirds or even nature.

And then I quick sent it off before I lost my nerve. It was nice. Just writing with an urgency, asking myself along the way, "What's the next most real thing, and the next?"

It's hard not to feel like I'm racing something. My birthday, my moving day, the next moving day. Then: First day of school... But I'm not. There's no race here. Just laps.


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365 days of being a writer: day 277

Feedback.

I have this hummingbird piece that I feel is almost there. And I want it to be there before I send it off to Orion. I don't have a workshop yet, so I have asked a few writers to look it over. Some have responded in detail, some less so.

My first in-depth response suggested a pretty substantial re-write: to include myself more, and less "unusual" nature terminology. The reader felt that the mystery of nature isn't enough to keep another reader engaged--or at least it doesn't seem to be within my power to make it interesting on its own. This is a fear that I have about every piece of nature-based writing that I undertake.

I was bummed out, but as it was the only feedback I had to go on, I started trying to figure out how to make an essay that was supposed to be about pollination into an essay about me. Trying doesn't hurt anything. And this reader put a great deal of effort into their comments. I was hugely appreciative of the attention, and wanted to make the most of it.

And then I got notes from a second reviewer. This reviewer felt I was in the essay just enough, that there was a theme of "assumptions about nature in peril" and great details. However this reader felt that my arc was too diffuse. Reader number 2 suggested bringing more focus to themes that are already in the piece. This is often a problem in my essays.

So, what do I do? Two opposite views. I'd like some formula or rule of thumb that will allow me to take the "easier to swallow" feedback or know that if it's easier to take it's the wrong feedback. How do you know when to take comments and when to leave them? Is it some kind of esoteric "feeling"? (I hope not.)

365 days of being a writer: day 276

I'm still here, and if you're reading this, you must be, too. Since the world did not end, I did in fact have to drag my ass out of bed and get stuff done.

I have been fighting a migraine all day and it is finally winning, so this will be short.

I did not get up particularly early this morning, but I gave myself permission to sleep in--why else have a weekend?!

This afternoon I managed to submit three Demand articles and research two more (woo!) I am nonplussed that my "scorecard" for both research and mechanics has slipped. I don't agree with that assessment, but there's not much I can do about that--the content editors are an invisible and faceless group on purpose.

Tomorrow morning I am going to go over some really wonderful feedback I've received on my hummingbirds essay and see what can be incorporated.

365 days of being a writer: day 275

Today, I rejoiced in the Fridayness of it all. I had to do more writing than usual at the day job, mostly I just reformat things.

I also perused a ton of flash fiction sites and got all inspired to write tiny zombie stories, even though zombies are pretty played out.

Later, I read The Believer and scribbled some notes at a bar about my blackbird essay. Still having trouble with the whole 'who cares' bit. Even after my supposed epiphany last month.

It was good to just scribble with a beer, but I need to get a bit more done tomorrow.

I have left open the doc I want to work on, based on Chrissy's awesome comment yesterday. Here's to a good night's sleep and a productive and fun day tomorrow.


An artist's "book" of rocks at the Phoenix library

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365 days of being a writer: day 274

A smart-as-hell writer I know spent today in a very productive state, and I admire and want to emulate her. To that end, I am dashing this off from the office, as I am going to TRY TRY TRY to stay off the internet when I get home. No library after work tonight: I'm to go straight home where I will cook up some shrimp and black beans, write for thirty minutes straight on my birding essay, and then pack and crochet for whatever time is left.

I wrote up a writer's to-do list for the rest of my time here in Phoenix. It is infinitely do-able. I just have to get back to morning writing, somehow. I did this for a little bit earlier this year, and got my (not at all successful but well-loved) Utah mini-essay out of it. I'm less distracted in the mornings, groggily focused, I'd say.

The problem is that the thought of getting into business casual clothes and coming here to listen to mind-numbing phrases like definitivization and return on investment makes me want more than anything to stay in bed. How can I motivate myself to start a day that is going to be so largely frustrating? I wake up slowly in the best scenarios, and I just can't seem to find the right ritual/alarm/cue to let my 5am ass know what my 5pm ass does: that I will be much happier at the end of the day if I get up early at the beginning.

Anyone have any ideas?

To Do

• Take one more edit pass at the Hummingbirds before sending them to Orion
• Finish the birding essay (it's in a draft! just write the ending then make it better!)
• Write an essay about taking the bus--this doesn't have to be long, you can do it
• Figure out an angle for writing something about the desert before I have left it
• Expand a couple of CNFtweets into microprose pieces
• Write about those Iberian lynxes and PJ
• Put those "science at an early age" notes together into a draft of some kind
• Get another review together for Xenith

365 days of being a writer: day 273

Someone in my online writers' group said today that I am the hardest working writer they know. And I got a little bit choked up. This means, in part, that I need to get more sleep tonight than I have been as I've been a total crybaby all day, but also that sometimes a little external validation is an amazing and delicately glorious thing.

Because lately? I have been feeling like a really UNPRODUCTIVE writer! All because I am not writing beautiful essays. I'm writing Demand articles and tech specs and plans for a cool new project involving writers--and yet, if someone to ask what I am writing, I would say "oh god, nothing!" I'm also able to berate myself for not making more time for writing. It would be funnier if it weren't true.

So, tonight I'm leaving the library at 8 instead of 9 having come here almost directly from work and I'm going to go home and spend some time with my newest fiber project (a green shawl) and maybe read a little. Because, damnit, I am working hard and trying to be a good writer. It doesn't have to kill me to be true.

365 days of being a writer: day 272

I came to the library to write a slew slough bunch of Demand articles, and found their site down. This will likely mean that I lose one of them if I can't get back here tomorrow night to work on it.

Can I curse the dumb idea of turning off my internet again?

But really, it's still preferable. Internet at home is a huge distraction. I don't get "work" done--I get hours and hours of surfing done. I am the queen of distractor-mousing. This makes me think about my belongings critically as well (especially as I pack them in dozens and dozens and dozens of boxes). Whenever I stay in hotels, I get so much more done--I get up early and workout, I write, read, knit. Sometimes even with a bit of TV.

What's the difference, if not all my clutter of stuff? I mean, I love my stuff: Bali masks and Paul Bunyan salt shakers and small boxes full of rocks from all over the country and a little copper bird nest, and so many books! I have gotten rid of so much stuff, it seems crazy that I still have too much for my mental health or productivity or both. What's the solution? Am I just blaming my stuff  when I should be blaming my lack of work ethic?

I know when I come home, there are seemingly dozens of small chores and I either spend all my little times doing them, or avoiding them in creative ways. These are things I don't have to do in a hotel room: dishes, sort mail, fold laundry. I can just get up and go. I don't have to dig through three shelves of vitamins, lotions, soaps, and makeup to get to the three or four things I use every morning... Maybe it is less about visual clutter, and more about functional clutter. How hard is it to work at my desk? I have to move a few things around each time I set up or take down my laptop. This is just thinking out loud now, on-screen.

Maybe I just need to segregate the "distractions" to one wall of bookshelves? Clean all of the extras out of the bathroom and kitchen. Extra ketchup packets? Fortune cookies? That tiny honey jar I was going to reuse for something...? All these are energy suckers, stealing my writing time by requiring attention and acknowledgment. Or, I'm just unfocused and nuts. Either way, going home and doing another round of purging while I pack can't hurt.

The next space will be more focused on what matters--because I will be more focused on what matters. That's what I am going with for now.

365 days of being a writer: day 271

I haven't written anything real in months, it feels. Demand articles, flash pieces, and tech writing.

All work and no play...

It's becoming clear that if I can write and jog everyday, and knit and hike and socialize each week, then I am way less crazy. I know it's an ideal: but why not work towards the ideal?

For now, moving and making cash takes precedence. But I need to get better at writing in small bursts. So: notebook is going back in the bag. Tomorrow I'm hoping to knock out most of the week's articles so I can concentrate on packing and other side projects.

I'm totally sleep-deprived and disjointed. Passing out in 3, 2, 1...

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365 days of being a writer: day 270

Today was kind of frustrating.

I am trying to get a project going, and I am really excited about it. It gives me something to think about during the less than stimulating work days. It's writing related, and is a good opportunity to for me to showcase my project management skills...

But what do you do when you can't get your partners to talk? I would love to take the ball and run, but not without a go-ahead. Or, I would love to hand the ball off if someone else is ready to run.

And yet, no conversation, no running. Just waiting. I would love some advice.

So my day was spent trying to write Demand articles. I submitted one. (ONE! Worst, terrible!) And I researched three more.

365 days of being a writer: day 269

It is really difficult to drag my ass through the Demand articles. Some days (like today) I get caught up in the "research" -- in this case, ponytail palms and copper cookware -- and never get to actually writing anything.

Putting the words on the page isn't tough, it's getting myself to believe in it long enough to start. If I can make it to an outline, I'm already a believer.

More plotting and planning has been going on, and packing. Next time I see this stuff, I'll be in Laramie!


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365 days of being a writer: day 268

Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking into the future. (I hope I own that track.)

I am buzzed and going to sleep. Spent much of today daydreaming about what my own lit mag would be like. Also talking about it. I have writer business cards. Is that crazy? G'night y'all.


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365 days of being a writer: day 26something

Due to the blogger outage, I am unsure about whether I need to repost Wednesday or not. So, erring on the side of caution and all:

Day 266
I have spent the last 45 minutes trying to get an Internet connection when I am supposedly communicating very freely with a "very good" connection.

I'm fairly certain that this post won't make it up, and the coffeeshop is about to close. So much for being productive. I could cry.

Anyway, wonderful news today. My Coney Island piece is now up at Used Furniture Review!

Late Arrival: Coney Island, 2008

If you feel so moved as to leave feedback on the site, well that would be fantastic. That's all I can handle today.

And, 267 (via Tumblr):

No post since Blogger’s been down all evening. I hope it comes back up soon.

I did get a book review submitted. And many discussions about an upcoming project were had.

The final week of 52/250 should be up soon, and I really like how the one I worked on turned out. More later.

And it's true! It's up here: All Three of Them This was a collaboration, and a lot of fun.

365 days of being a writer: day 266

I have spent the last 45 minutes trying to get an Internet connection when I am supposedly communicating very freely with a "very good" connection.

I'm fairly certain that this post won't make it up, and the coffeeshop is about to close. So much for being productive. I could cry.

Anyway, wonderful news today. My Coney Island piece is now up at Used Furniture Review!

Late Arrival: Coney Island, 2008

If you feel so moved as to leave feedback on the site, well that would be fantastic. That's all I can handle today.

365 days of being a writer: day 265

I relived day 263, twice.

The third quarterly from the 52 | 250 blog came out today: Thirtynine And I am in it! You can find me under week #34: Floating Away.

I also found out that was rejected for one special section on Demand and approved for another. Baby steps, I suppose. Already I have added two articles from my new section to my queue that are plant and food related.

You know what's tough? Naming things. Essays, websites, articles. Names are tough. I have played around with Wordle before, for naming essays. But if it's something bigger, like your whole blog, how do you go about doing it? I suppose some among you will just tell me a thing names itself. Like the way a writer I know commented on yesterday's entry saying essentially that fiction isn't something the writer does, but it's an event that happens--you just have to take good notes.

While I like the romantic notions of this idea, it can be a crutch for a dreamer like myself. The dreamy writer says, I only write when the writing hits me like a sack of flour. Well, I can't live waiting around to be bashed in the head with a brilliant idea. Lucky those who can. I want to write every day. Some days it will be inspired, some days it will be drudgery, but it will be my craft and I will be honing it. To those who find their creativity to be like a train, and who can afford (I don't just mean financially) to wait by the tracks, I salute you.

So, back to names. If the name does just happen, then my inability to spot it or suss it out from the jumble or carve it out from the stone is a shortcoming. I'd prefer for the sake of argument then, to pretend it is an answer to be riddled out. I don't know the answer to the riddle, or even the steps for solving it. For now, it's just a lot of dumb-idea throwing and following of tangential ideas.

PS, I am loving the newest Wordle for the blog:

365 days of being a writer: day 263

My bookshelves are emptying into boxes.


Today I spoke with a writer friend about writing fiction. Writers like George Saunders emphasize this feeling of "getting lost" in their writing, of writing their way out of a story. Anne Lamott talks of not knowing where a story is headed, but writing through a shitty first draft to find out.

This amazes and terrifies me about fiction. I have a tough enough time trying to lose myself in an essay when I know the ending... I can't imagine trying to get lost with no bearings whatsoever.

I have to know approximately where I'm going. Even if the exact route is still undecided. I can't be without a plan and exit strategy. This has almost always been the case. Even in high school, at the height of abandon, I never quite got high enough to lose total control. (Exception made for the layoff year: terrible things went down then. But, another time.)

This is maybe a shortcoming, maybe an advantage, I don't know. I know part of what cripples me as a writer is not knowing the direction of an essay, the point it's getting to. I sit on it and make false starts and set it down for a week. I can't just forge ahead into complete unknown. What if there are sharks or embarrassing stories?

I still want to be a spontaneous wild and crazy artist-type, somewhere deep down. So I sleep til the last minute and leave the house looking ragged. I write down to the tight wire deadline, at breakneck speed. When it matters though, day in and out, I crave routine, order, coherence. I thrive there. Why does that feel like such a dirty secret?

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365 days of being a writer: day 263

I was able to spend a few hours at the botanical garden this morning, but since it was so early, I somehow arrived without a pen.

What kind of lousy writer shows up to quiet, nature-drenched writing time without a pen?

So instead I walked around looked at cacti and succulents and birds and lizards. I watched a fence lizard attempt to seduce another fence lizard. There was a rock dove on a next with chicks. And many wilted datura were flaccid on their stems in the bright sun. Spring has sprung.

I was able to add to the outline of three articles and had a wonderful exchange with an editor who was rejecting one piece, but already accepted another. That's progress, at least we conversed! And hopefully my Coney Island piece will be up next week.

365 days of being a writer: day 262

I submitted my final entry into the 52 | 250 project this evening. I am excited about this one because it is a collaboration piece that I wrote with two fantastic writers: Chad Smith and Jeff Questad. I haven't seen Chad since we graduated from high school and I've never met Jeff, yet they are two important parts of my writing community.

Supportive, committed, and game for adventure (evidenced by aforementioned mini-project). And we have the internet to thank for our collaboration.

This last year would have been much more difficult without the virtual Writer's Colony I have been fortunate enough to join on Twitter and Facebook. Almost all of the writers that I regularly speak with are people I have never met, or have met rarely. Yet the feedback, advice, and shared experiences are completely real. It is as real a group as the one I hope to be sitting with in a few short months.

I would like to wax more sentimental about all this, but I've had way too much coffee and sugar at the coffeeshop and I am quite literally shaking with it. I am going to go home and rock out to some amazing music sent to me by another writer, to inspire some packing. PACKING!

365 days of being a writer: day 261

Sitting in the editor's seat is tough. I only had a few pieces to review, but it was interesting to me how much of my own taste I brought to the process.

Of course I would, what else do I have?

I did a semester of independent study one year back in art school, advised by Jack Portland (who was later on my thesis committee). I had been having trouble getting good feedback on this obsession with series of boxes. Some I made from scratch, others were cigar boxes that I would fill with stories (hah! foreshadowing in the longest most boring story of my twenties and thirties ever) or photos and stories. My lit teacher didn't feel qualified to evaluate them as "art works" and my photo teacher didn't know how to speak to the writing component. So Jack said, how about you just make them for a semester and you tell me what they're about.

In one of our first meetings, I confessed to Jack that I didn't think I knew anymore what made art good or bad. I only knew what I liked, and I wasn't even sure why. Jack said that that was what school was for: to learn what made art good and what made it bad--that there was a language to describe that, that I needed to learn. I would still carry with me what I liked and didn't. And he said that when I was done, hopefully I could speak to good art I liked as well as good art I didn't like. I could still like bad art all I wanted, too, but I would know why it didn't "work."

This is how I feel about poetry all the time, and these creative nonfiction pieces I have just read. I know what I like about them, and what I don't--but I'm not sure I am qualified yet to translate that into an assessment of good (for this journal) or bad. Ultimately, I will go with my reading and prior workshops and etc, etc. But it makes it easier to picture my essays not making it past a reader based on nothing more than preference.

"Another essay about birds and flowers?" Pass.

365 days of being a writer: day 260

Remember that one time, when I said there were less than a hundred days until this experiment was done and you guys were so nice and no one called me a burnout who DESERVED 50th percentile on the math portion of the GRE? Yeah. Still not less than a hundred. But my cube chain is getting shorter!


Well, metaphorically, it is. Today's gonna be a new damn leaf: and not just because I had one strong mojito (which I know is Cuban, but I love Cuba, too. And since when does my drinking a margarita today contribute anything worth contributing?) and am a little buzzed. Regardless of that, NEW LEAF.

This has turned into a diary, and that wasn't my intention. It is hard not to slip into that mode, given the format, but I think I have said some things before more eloquently about hard things being good for you. Difficult things, I mean, being good for you. Oof.

Anyway. This is supposed to be about writing, not why I'm sad, or pissed off, or tired. Time to rally!

Today I registered for three of my first four classes. Environmental Approaches, something something compositional pedagogy, and teaching composition mentorship. My last class will be the CNF workshop.

YOU GUYS! Grad school!

And tonight, once this buzz subsides, I will play the role of editor to some CNF that has been submitted to Mixed Fruit. I'm their interim CNF editor. Even though, even though my night essay did not make the Iowa Review competition final round. I still love it, though it IS under review and revision.

That's all. I apologize for all the whining. It's stupid, things are good.

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365 days of being a writer: day 259

I'm a study in dissatisfaction. I am the Queen of Be Careful What You Wish For.

I've always figured that I was dissatisfied because I wasn't where I needed to be, doing what I needed to do. But what if that's not it at all? What if it's something deeper, that no amount of geographic or spinal adjustment can cure? I'm terrible at meditating.

I managed to jot down a little Tumblr flash thing based on a woman from New Orleans, my great grandmother, and an overheard conversation. What is that though? Like bending down to pick up a pen and calling it yoga. I'm too cranky for this today. Even writing an article about geology didn't cheer me up. Though I did have an encouraging conversation with the coordinator of UWyo's ENR program. I think I'm grouchy because I can't start yet.

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365 days of being a writer: day 258

I really appreciate that no one called me out for my terrible math the other day. There are MORE than 100 days left in this experiment, you guys.

I feel exhausted. I can't seem to get up early enough to write before the day flattens me. Why is that? What pill can I take? Each day my job sucks up more of my mental energy. That's the problem with cubes. I have only written 83 creative words in two weeks! (OK, plus like two paragraphs of a book review.)

There was good news: I finally cleared the immunization requirement. Three trips to an occupational clinic, two shots, three faxes and two official signatures later. Sheesh. I also found out that I might have the insurance money to get laser eye surgery before I leave for school. If you could, would you?

I'm aching and achy. Sitting at the library with a migraine that has been TRYING for two days to break on through my skull. I am going to go home and go to sleep.

365 days of being a writer: day 257

Everything makes me so mad lately. Was I always mad all the time? Is it the heat, too much coffee, not enough exercise? Maybe because I don't smoke much of anything anymore? It wears me out. It weeeeeaaaaarrrs me out.

Today, like yesterday, somehow slipped through my fingers with little to show. I still don't know if my vaccine status is going to be OK with UWyo. I hope I don't need any more shots. I've gotten so many shots in the last week, I'm actually getting teary-eyed just thinking about more.

I had to do so much tech writing that I was too burnt out for anything else. That is such a crummy feeling. I don't know how people with day jobs do it.

I wanted today to be better than yesterday, but it wasn't. I guess I'll try again tomorrow.

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365 days of being a writer: day 256

I can't talk about writing. Osama bin Laden is dead and I have a huge crush on the President.

(And as far as writing goes, I got little done. It was a day of errands, distractions, and etc. Somehow, the day just slipped through my fingers. It would be disappointing if I weren't so buzzed on jingoistic brouhahaha)

I will just have to do better tomorrow, and the day after.