Today at work I went to a "speed networking" event, where a bunch of us formed into two lines and then had two minutes to introduce ourselves to each other before moving down to the next person. It was kind of chaotic, but it was a nice way to get to know a few more people there. Granted, there are still hundreds of other people in that office alone that I haven't met and may never meet, but it's always good to have a few more familiar faces out there. Even having the chance to practice my small talk was nice. It's the kind of event that I'd never have been able to force myself to go to ten years ago, but I feel like I've changed dramatically since then.
I have NaNoWriMo to thank for that mostly, I think. I'd known nerds before I did NaNo, but I'd never known a group of such GREGARIOUS nerds before. I was used to folks who were mostly quiet and kept to themselves; the type of guys (and they were almost always guys) who, even when they talked, were almost inaudible. Now I have more female friends than I ever had before in my life, and even if a crowd is still not my favorite place to be I'm at least up for diving into one for a while. In fact, my social calendar's gotten to the point that I'm starting to miss my old solitary stretches a bit. But then when I finally do get some time to myself I usually grow lonely surprisingly quickly unless I have a task to keep myself focused on. My video games are gathering dust, and it seems that the more I read and write, the more those hackneyed plots suffer by comparison.
The downside of not having those quiet times is that I feel like I'm not creating enough. I mean, I'm writing these blog entries, and the daily entries beyond them, but I'm not really telling stories or making music of my own. Not that the world doesn't have enough stories or music, but I still feel like I have something to say that's unique to me. Otherwise I'd be more than happy to just consume the great works of the world and just be a programmer for the rest of my life. But every so often I'll get a song stuck in my head, and know that I can't pull it up on iTunes because it's never been written or performed. Or I'll get an idea for a character or a plot in my head, and I desperately don't want it to die there. I think that's what I fear the most about death: dying with ideas in my head that I'll never be able to share with anybody. Now maybe nobody'll be interested in hearing at least some of those ideas, but there has to be something worthwhile in that great clattering heap of thoughts that keeps me up at night and taunts me when I'm least able to write things down. I've gotten some good feedback on some of the stuff I've written, and I'd like to go further with it.
I'm definitely planning on getting back to revising my novel this weekend. The longer I spend on it, the easier it'll be to keep going, so I want to really plug away at it when I get the chance. I'm looking at a big stretch of Sunday afternoon in particular that should be able to get me off to a good start. I've taken a few passes before, but the only time I've had the momentum to go all the way through it was when I was getting my revised sections critiqued by friends. The story still needed another draft at that point, but the fact that I committed myself to a series of deadlines really helped me stay motivated. Maybe I should set a schedule for my revising, but I don't know what kind of pace would be realistic for me to meet without falling behind and getting discouraged. That's even more of a question mark because I'm about to officially start my marathon training next week. Now THERE'S something that has a set schedule I need to stick to. But then again running is something that's much easier to break down into discrete units of achievement, since there isn't any creativity involved. There's a psychological aspect to it, but it's not on the same level as creating a whole world and making sure that everything in it fits organically. That's no excuse though. If I'm going to get this revising done, a schedule is the only way I know to make it work. Now I just need to find the time to create one...
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