A Different Kind of Brainwork

I’ve come to the conclusion that I should try to finish The Blight of Beezel Tower. I always need to really overthink something before I decide to do it. And I believe I did a very thorough job of overthinking whether or not to revive The Blight. So, as long as NaNoWriMo is going, I might as well take advantage of its slipstream and see if I can finish up by 12:00 AM, Howard Island Time, November 30, 2005. Maybe through the process of engaging in a different kind of brainwork than I'm used to, I'll work some flab off the old brain cells, even though it may not be the best use of my time. I’m sure that guy who wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People would disapprove, but I despise all books of that ilk, so who cares what he thinks? Perhaps I need to work a reference to Seven Habits into The Blight, so I can mock and skewer that guy and his dumb book.

I’m still going to be blogging here. I’ll post two or three entries a week as usual and will work on the novel on the days I don’t blog. At least that’s the plan. We’ll see just how laughable and ludicrous that goal turns out to be. As of today, I feel optimistic that both are do-able, especially if it keeps raining.

For me, there’s nothing like torrential rain to enhance productivity. I got a lot of work (the paying kind) done today, because it rained all day long. I just hunkered down and blazed through my assignment, taking short, refreshing breaks every hour or two to go look out the window and admire the growth of the mammoth puddle at the end of our driveway (which I am sort of in love with--the puddle not the driveway). Of course, I love nice weather, too, but when it’s nice on a workday, I’m always a bit put out that I’m stuck indoors working (very immature of me).

Sure, I’m self-employed and could just blow off part of the day and take a walk. I seldom do that, but I definitely don’t work as efficiently when the Sun is out. Kind of psycho and self-defeating, really, because if nice weather motivated me to be efficient then I could finish work an hour or two early (maybe) and go out and enjoy the beautiful weather. I don’t know how I got like this, but, clearly, choosing to live in “Puddletown” was a good move on my part. Imagine what would happen if I lived in southern California, where it never rains (at least that’s my impression). I’d be parked in front of the computer for ten to twelve hours a day in a sort of stop and go work/fritter pattern. Gah! I hate that.

One other thing I accomplished today was to put up a blog where I will be entering installments of The Blight of Beezel Tower. That should help me actually stay on task with it, I hope. (I know that making my journal be a public blog has kept me at it for more than a year now—something like a tenfold improvement over any previous diary/journal attempts I’ve ever made.) There are four installments of The Blight up so far, and I’ve probably got six to eight more ready to go before I have to buckle down and start grinding out new stuff. Go here if you want to see what’s up there so far, or click on the link in the blogroll. Start at the bottom with Installment 1 and read up from there--but only if you really, really want to. I must reiterate that it is the roughest of all rough and unpolished drafts!