So I managed to do it, 50,000 words in a month, my last few jotted quickly during this past crappy week – but I’ve now got about 140 pages and a clear idea of where the next 25,000 words are going to a finish of sorts sometime in December. 1000 words a day and I’ll be done by Christmas time. I’m looking forward to starting something else already. Perhaps short stories for awhile? Or a new novel draft? A break, anyways, between one project and the next.
In January I’ve decided to do a month of photographs. One per day for the blog, carry my camera everywhere for awhile. That isn’t the same kindof project but it does require a particular attention that I haven’t had to the external world for awhile. I’ve been thinking about photo/word projects again lately, wish I had more time for all kinds of creating.
This last week was one of those times where I felt weighed on a lot by the futility of making change, and the brevity of life. What is the point exactly? You know, of using ones few precious years in the pursuit of changing human nature? That’s a question to myself at the moment. A challenge to decide what the best use of my time is. Music and writing? Or labour politics. The former seems obvious, the latter hard to disentangle from. If only it was the first time I was asking this I wouldn’t feel so sheepish about it, if only I didn’t feel like all sides had an equally loud voice in my head.
And work too, it’s been making me a little crazy. Extra work assignments, and then a peer in another unit tried to bully me into changing the intranet publishing policy just for him at the end of the week. Threats abound, that he is going to go above my head, going straight to the head of our department, because he decided not to follow the advice I gave him last summer. I’m not worried about so much as annoyed. When I first came to work there (more than ten years ago now) I was bullied by a group of people for much the same reasons (I had to enforce an internet publishing policy they did not like), and hell if I’m going to put up with it now that I’ve actually got some cred under my belt!
But whatev you know? Christmas shopping today, writing a letter to my friend Chelsea in prison, dinner with friends tonight. Our cozy house and morning coffee. I’m hoping next week is a reset so I can get down to finishing my damned novel.
