Another weekend has come and gone and the gross output by yours truly is nothing. Okay, I did play a soccer game, helped Kirsty prepare dinner for four of our friends, and spent more time sitting on the couch watching DVDs of How I Met your Mother. If you’ve never seen How I Met your Mother, or HIMYM to those in the know – you should. Neil Patrick Harris is absolute genius in it. He plays the ultimate ladies man; which if you know anything about him in real life makes the role that much more funny. The fact that you believe he is capable of being so “Awesome” (his word, not mine) underlines his comedic brilliance. The fact I see a lot of my younger self in him is beside the point. Watch the show – you’ll laugh. But enough about that. Let’s get to the real purpose of this post. 

I’m seriously lacking in the motivation required to even list writing as a hobby, let alone pursue it as something I really want to do. I have managed to ear mark a few contests coming up, even have stuff I could work on to submit to these contests, but I find myself in love with my couch and everything about it. Seriously, I’d pee in an empty bottle if I meant I didn’t have to move on weekends. And if I could convince friends to cook and bring the food to me I’d be willing to pay them handsomely. As of yet, I haven’t asked. I know we’ve got friends here who would welcome the extra money. 

Having decided that I want to pursue a Masters degree, you would think I would use that goal as incentive to hone my craft, to get my levels back up to where they once were. Whether or not I have any real talent at this writing malarkey is not the issue right now – it’s removing the proverbial pen from my ass and jotting down some words that is. I know I work better under deadlines (weird because I can’t seem to force my creative writing), but the longer I wait to put together a portfolio worth presenting, the more inclined I’ll be to put this off for another year. And I don’t want to do that. 

Well, I tell myself I don’t want to do that; but my actions are speaking volumes to the contrary at the moment. I remember when I decided to go back to college after my failed attempt straight out of high school (okay, so I nearly failed to get out of high school as well). I worked for eight years in a steel warehouse and other part-time jobs at night. After the first year at the steel warehouse I told myself it was time to go back to school. Time to prove to myself that maybe I did possess just a little bit of a brain. While the situation then was a little different – I wanted to be 100% sure the course I enrolled in was the perfect one for me – as I would be walking away from a pretty good income and a great retirement plan. But it took me another 4 years before I even thought of looking for a course. All the while you would have thought I’d start saving money to prepare for such an endeavor. Nope, not me. I bought a car out of my price range and spent every penny living paycheck to paycheck. Fun times, indeed. 

Now I’ve found two courses that I would love to take and be happy with either one. In fact, I might apply for both of them just in case. That might be the best thing I can do. I can use the same portfolio pieces. And as I sit and re-read the emails from the respective advisors from both programs, I get excited about the possibilities. Just not excited enough it would appear. 

One of the programs has its own creative writing website, which I was advised to check out and join. You don’t even have to be a member of the program or the school to post work or comment. You just have to log on a profile and become part of the creative writing community. Every week I tell myself to create a profile and post something, anything. While I love the blog format because I love to talk, it doesn’t lend itself well to creative fiction (with some exceptions of course). Now I know a lot of my fellow bloggers are creative writers and poets, and I respect them and their work immensely, but I also feel I should be surrounding myself in a forum where my fiction, and only fiction, is getting ripped apart and dragged through more mud than Lindsay Lohan. I’ve always taken criticism well (when it isn’t just spiteful). 

My wife isn’t helping me much either, bless her. She’s content to let me sit on the couch, as I am to her, instead of getting me to get up and start writing. She’s keeping a daily journal of ideas and has started work on her own novel again. Granted, she does much of this while she’s waiting for things to do at work, leaving her free to play video games or snuggle the cats all night. I don’t have that luxury. Maybe I need her to sit down and give me a schedule, sort of like the schedule I had for the marathon training. Maybe if I know that she is okay with it, I won’t feel so bad locking myself away for a couple of hours a night. Maybe I won’t feel this self-inflicted guilt about leaving her alone. And it’s weird, because I know she doesn’t like locking herself away for hours at a time if I’m downstairs.  

I’ve also decided to jump headfirst into Twitter but in a bit of a different way. I’m thinking of being rather selective about it and following people from certain groups and then just posting some snippets or quotes from stuff I’m working on. I’ve actually written three “Tweets”, all less than the maximum 140 characters, that are quite literary. Now to make the time to get myself set up and dedicated again. And I know I’ll need Kirsty’s help. 

So, that will be my new plan. I will butter my wife up enough so she cracks the whip across my lazy ass and assigns me a writing schedule and perhaps some targets as well. Flowers and chocolates might help. And jewelry always works too. 

Cheers