Yeah, I know. I haven't been around much lately. If it helps any, I've developed guilty ulcers because of it.
What can I say? Life has been busy. The Situation crawls along at it's glacial pace, although if I were to graph it, it would be filled with hundreds of ups and downs daily. It would look like an audio waveform.
Ah! Speaking of which, waveforms have been devouring most of my time. I believe I mentioned it in one of the last newsletters, but I've been getting into audiobook narration and, crossing fingers, voice over work. I just wrapped up my first audiobook and submitted it. Theoretically, I'll even get paid for it.
Recording the simple, 3.5 hour book was easy. Recording well, I would soon learn, takes significantly more time. Editing? That took weeks. It would be crass to divulge what I'm making on it, but when you count up all the hours that it took to produce a passable audiobook, it probably works out to around $1.37 per hour. Probably not even that.
It's fine, though. FINE. It's called "paying your dues." Everybody has to get their rookie bars.
If the momentum continues, I may create a nice little career for myself: reading books for a living. How about that? It's a thing. A real thing.
However, I do hate this creative impulse coursing through my soul. Why couldn't I be the sensible, practical sort like the men in my family? They all do things like develop properties, build structures on them, or buy and sell businesses. Those who don't land safe jobs and do well in them. Me? I need to "map the topography of the metaphysical landscape" or some crap like that. It has apparently doomed me to...to...whatever this is. Some sort of creative hell.
Sorry. I had a point when I fired this up. I'll pin it down.
Probably.
At the monastery I currently call home, I have a lot of time to think. This isn't to say that every waking moment is not filled with some activity--washing dishes, mopping floors, mowing lawns, and, occasionally, recording, editing and writing--but my mind is always turning something over. Some intractable boulder, some plot, some hustle. If I'm awake, I'm working on something. I've been on a "war footing" for years.
It's unsustainable. I know that's a buzzword now. "Unsustainable." It's literally true, though. I've been talking about "subtracting, not adding" for awhile. In my foolish optimism and cockiness, I thought I could do a little bit of this and a little bit of that...and that...and THAT...and some more of this...
But I can't. Maybe I never could.
It all comes down to your One Thing, consistently done, over time.
I always knew that. Impatience fractured me. Fear hobbled me. The toughest lesson to learn was that mastery of a thing takes time, so...use your damn time for that One Thing.
Anyway, I'm still here. Still writing. Still taking pictures. Still recording and auditioning. Many things, but in their proper place and order. Essential things first, fun things second.
More soon...
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I just read a good thought on the sub conscience from Cormac McCarthy, when your struggling with something, pray about it right before bed, he called it the night shift, many times the puzzle works out by morning
Glad you checked in. I was wondering how you were doing. Ever onward!