This morning didn't start off too hot. Well, I shouldn't say that. It started out well enough: I woke up at 9am, made coffee, opened my laptop and prepared to have an inspiring day of just all out writing to make (and exceed) my pre-ordained 4 pages of morning writing that will serve to flesh out my novel. Thinking about that, I realize that I shouldn't say "flesh out" since that implies that I have at least a skeleton of a novel, you know, from start to finish. I think what I have is more like an embryo of the novel, although, seeing that I have over 30 pages written, I'm not so much proud of that writing anymore. I may have only written 30 pages of background but not the actual story. But I need to stop writing around the actual problem.
The actual problem, is that when I opened my laptop, and spent a few minutes clicking through Google's "special day in history icon" that I can never resist reading about (today it was about the fully preserved fossil of Darwinius Maxillae, or something like that), I decided to round out my procrastinative endeavors and check out all the other mundane things in my life, including bank accounts and bills. Wouldn't you know it, but I stupidly forgot about an EFT (a new bill, I might add, so I definitely wasn't expecting it) that put my bank account into the negative. Mark's going to love that. On top of all that, I checked my other bank account, which I use solely for tracking my own personal expenses (I only keep $20 in there from paycheck to paycheck), and instead of the $0 balance that I thought I had since I put $3 in there yesterday, it turned out that my account was -$30 as of Monday, and the teller didn't bother to tell me that when I put a measly $3 in. How frustrating! Of course, when I encounter a financial obstacle, my solution has always been to take a few calming breaths and then promptly apply online to whatever job I can find. This time, I searched Monster.com and Indy Star to see what results I would find. Wouldn't you know it, there were part-time offerings for Verizon, so I decided to apply there again. Of course, I am conscious that the likelihood of getting a callback is basically nil. But, I always have to feel like I'm being an active participant of my life, and the action helps to soothe me and open a channel to God, saying that ok, I've done my part, what next? And the what next is inevitably God telling me that I need to be a better Steward of my resources and to know more for next time, but know that He still loves me, and that I'm not the complete failure that I think I am.
I just think it's funny to see that one aspect, one little moment in time can reduce me from hopeful and inspired-ready to self-abusive and unforgiving. Just wait until I want to market my novels for publishing. I should fashion my self-flagellate whips now. And a shadow box to display all of my rejection notices. Wouldn't that make me feel like I'm being an active participant in my own destiny?
At any rate, here is my morning writing, reduced from four pages of a rough draft for the novel to a semi-paragraph, almost poetical litany of how much I suck:
I wish I had beautiful things to say. But I don’t .
I wish I were the eloquent queen, the girl of your dreams, your fiery seductress swirling liquid ruin with your dessert. But I am none of those things.
I am the master of backpedaling; of being the quick wit five-minutes-too-late, the $30 cup of coffee because I couldn’t figure out if I had $2 or $3 left in my bank account. I am the too early to be fashionably late, too late to be punctual. I am the "if only I could have" safety of my golden years. The “after” in the aftermath; a flashforward gone wrong. The secret tears that everyone sees. The ongoing caps lock that confounds case sensitive logins. The coffee brewed with not enough water. Not enough. There.
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