Alter Ego

...what are you doing in (the journalism business) anyway? you should be writing books ya know

Or so says Mayamaya, the operator of "The Sinister Sister" blog, a place I heartily recommend you spending your online time. Eventually, I get that same sentiment (each with its own personal, idiosyncratic spin) from everyone I know, people who piece together that I would be happier writing than filling out a weekly time sheet. Yeah, I would love to spend my waking hours working at my keyboard, pounding out chapters and characters reciting cool dialogue in the fictional half-light of a dying neon sign. I imagine my day like this: wake up and see my wife off as she leaves for work, have some toast, watch a bit of morning news, spend about an hour surfing the Web before I devote 4-5 hours at the keyboard (With time off for potty breaks and appropriate intervals to pet the cats. I am a good father, after all), stop at about 2 p.m., go for a run, come back, start dinner, exercise with my wife when she comes home, eat, Simpsons, minor blog entry, answer e-mail, bed.

Not a bad life. I know I'd be happy. My wife and I have proof that the cats are better adjusted when at least one of us is at home. I'd probably get a good 15-20 pages done a day (as opposed to a mediocre 30 or a bad 40), and I'd be cruising away on that pesky ol' novel. I figure I could get the novel done inside of a year, 8-10 months if I'm lucky (and I have my covert army of proofreaders correcting my gaffes in literary skulk work...this is assuming that they have no lives either, and are good stay-at-home kitty-daddies like me).

Of course, I need a job. I have a mortgage, bills and a need to sock money away for food and a retirement. Plus, I've grown fond of the idea of having health care coverage and a 401(k). I'd love to throw it all into the wind and live the life of a bohemian writer, being hungry and penniless, but crafting some great art. I'd love being that daring other-self even more, because I have a terribly dull job. I've held myself back from applying for more satisfying jobs elsewhere because I knew that if I took them, I'd be too wrapped up in work and not devoting time to writing. Stick with this lame gig, I tell myself, and you'll force yourself to write. The only way out is through my own creativity.

The thing is, I'm lazy, sometimes in spectacular ways. I know that if I didn't screw around at my job, I could do my daily tasks and have a couple hours left to devote to writing while pretending to do my job. You know, writing your stuff on company time. They give me boring work at a job with little potential for advancement, and I'll create my own escape hatch with their own tools. How perfectly cunning. How devious.

How the hell am I going to pull it off? When I'm doing my job, I'm also answering phones, gathering mail, or dealing with snippy critics. It all saps your energy. In one of my first blog entries from ages ago, I wondered how superheroes did it. Mild-mannered persona by day, ass-kicking crime fighter by night. Where did they get the energy? True, their tireless pursuit of villainy is one thing, but some nights you imagine they'd want to keep the spandex in the closet and settle in with a good book, or go out with that girl from the coffee shop who, with a wink, just "accidentally" keeps giving our hero an extra-large brew instead of the ordered regular. Real life intrudes now and then.

I mentioned in a previous entry that I thought about getting up earlier, and that's still an option, but I have to find a way to motivate myself. Writing should be enough. Telling the stories that rattle around my head like ghosts in a Victorian novel should be the fuel to get up and going, but I worry...about a lot of things in my writing. How do you begin to write a novel? What if your ideas aren't original? (Trust me, I'm getting over that) How do I make this person interesting?

I would love to write during the day, away from my co-workers and wife, so I can go through my fits of starting and stopping; the painful stumbling of bad dialogue; the deep, embarrassing sighs of a bad scene that I created; and the self-pity that would follow like a shadow.

Sometimes, there just isn't enough time in the day. You can't be the bohemian making art. You don't have the godlike powers of a Clark Kent (also in the news business by day, hmmmm?). You have to deal with the day-to-day necessities of a having a job in the city. You need to rest your puny, mortal powers on the murky faith that something will work out, and you try not to stop caring about what's in your head, those worlds you created, in the meantime.


Today's Word...

...hasn't be updated yet, so I'm taking the evening off from the rigorous stream-of-consciousness workout that is the 60-second exercise.