Time Writing

Sunday May 20, 2018

First, I want to thank Risto for resurrecting this site. I've always been crap at keeping a written record - blog, journal, you name it. So when the old Apheleia.net went belly up, I thought that was a fairly strong sign that all journaling and blogging efforts on my part were ultimately futile.

Second, I want to share a funny text I sent Risto last year, which he just brought to my attention. Apparently I monologue during texts?

"Let's be honest though - I work 56 hours a week for a fire department and take 4 - 6 credit hours a quarter of graduate work (which will nominally last until the end of next summer.) But when graduate school is over, will some other activity artificially take my time and keep me from creating and reading? Probably, unless I purposefully fight against it."

Let me save you a long story. It took that summer, the fall, and winter to finish my degree. It was worthwhile, and I am happy I did it. Now that that's over, I'm writing this from a hospital room where my wife is napping between contractions - she's having our first kid.

But there's always going to be something like this happening. I just had a certification class last month, and a promotional exam right after. In December, I hope to take another promotional exam. In June, I hope to take another certification course. There will be child-care, meeting our new kid and being the best parent I can be.

I want to pick back up hobbies I promised I would do again. I've been throwing pottery more, I've been planning an apiary at a house my wife's family owns. I want to plant an edible garden in our front yard so our kid can have a place to roll in the dirt and mess with plants that won't kill it (we don't know if we're having a boy or girl yet.)

There will always be something.

Writing is what I come back to though - in so many moments in the last 8 years, I have thought about the two major stories I am working on. I have been comforted by the presence of my characters. I have tried to emulate one of them in times of extreme stress. I have always been able to come back to them and pick up where I left off.

All of these activities will take as much time as you give them. It's what my wife (Natalie) warned me about re: grad school. And she was 100% right, and I've told her how right she is / was a bunch of times.

But now with these big thrusts forward to make writing one of my main focuses, I've got some new skills and some new insights. First and foremost is that I'm grateful that this process hasn't been rushed. I am looking on the way these stories began, and how I was writing them near the beginning. They sucked. Now I think they're better. I have a much different perspective now - and I'm a different person than I was 10 years ago (thankfully.) I think I'm better equipped to tackle some of the issues in both stories, and I think the storylines will reflect that.

I'm a faster writer. If nothing else, school was pretty good at getting me to put words on the page. I lost track of time in the fall quarter of last year - which is when my thesis was due. I figured that out 3 weeks before the final was due. 3 weeks, as it turns out, is enough time to write a thesis. One of Natalie's friends, Cameron, completely blew off my concerns and noted "you've got your research done going into the 3 weeks. I DID my thesis in 3 weeks."

I took comfort from that because he has a doctoral degree and seems to have survived.

My old blog posts took me literally hours to write. I wanted every word perfect, just so. You've made it to the 30 minute mark of my efforts. Writing as if you'll edit later is HARD, and it's taken years to acquire that skill.

So this turned out to be much less of a list than anticipated, but I'm going to stick to my guns, not edit a blog post, hit publish, and get some story writing done. Thanks Risto!

P.S. I use a single space after my periods now. That's a new development. It's hard to say goodbye to the old two space, but apparently everyone is doing it.