I might as well be painting rocks.

I dreamed last night that people were asking me how my writing was going and I was saying:

"Well, I might as well be painting rocks."  I kind of like that phrase.  Because there are no end of rocks, and painting them is sort of pointless, and it doesn't necessarily make them better rocks.


I've always sort of disliked and distrusted people who brag about how hard they're working.

But, you know...I've been working like a son of a bitch on this book.  I mean, I dive in around 10:00 or 11:00 and don't come up for air until dinner.  I know I'm eating lunch somewhere in there, cuddling the cat,  taking small naps, cruising the net, playing solitaire -- but I'm still in a zone.

It's all about the book.

I mean, I'm juggling so many plot elements that it requires full concentration.  Diving again and again back into the narrative -- sometimes making small changes and adjustments here and there, and other times make wholesale changes that are breathtakingly bold.  I meant -- eliminating entire chapters of my beautiful writing takes balls.  At least, that's what I think.

All in service to the story.  The story needs to work.  The characters need to work.  The writing needs to work.  All else is bullshit.

I resent anything that pulls me away.  Bank deposits, errands, people -- people trying to be friendly, what's with that, I'm writing dammit! -- and even in the evening, I'm just sort of throwing things on the box to watch later.  I usually force myself to quit sometime after dinner -- not because I don't want to keep working, but because I can tell I'm getting diminishing returns.

Then I go to bed so mentally exhausted that I instantly fall asleep, sleep hard, and wake up groggy.

Then I start the whole process over again.  Day after day.  Wake up in the morning and write these little blogs which are obviously about writing.  Then back to the grind.

So if a writer is someone who writes.  Then I'm a writer.

It seems a little crazy, actually.  All this scribbling when I know very few people will ever read it, and most of them will be "meh" about it.

But, apparently, I've decided this is who I am.

Rock painter extraordinaire.