750 Words, One Letter At a Time

There has to be more to life than sitting on subway trains fuming. Actually, I know there is. I just haven’t seen it in a while.

I have seen it, though. I’ve seen more of the world than most people, at least in a geographical sense. In a past life, I had a “career” where I did quite a bit of...travelling. I haven’t written about this much, but a rather large swath of my life after college involved being places other than New York, so I know there’s other shit out there. I just haven’t bothered to go out and look for it in a while.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about some new shit, and aside from just hooking up a sick fucking trip for my vacation – I’m finally taking one after not doing so for a long, long time – I’m thinking about some options, work-wise, that’ll have me going away a lot more often. I’m excited to see where I’ll go in life now that I’m finally applying myself again.

I’ll get one thing straight right off the bat: I know how fortunate I am right now to even have a job. I’m also thankful I’m not overseas with people shooting at me. I have friends in both positions, so I shouldn’t complain, and I rarely do anymore. There’s bigger shit going on in the world than the girl who took too long to use the Metrocard machine at 72nd Street this morning. I know all of this, but that doesn’t mean I have to stop thinking about my own life and where the fuck I’m going.

I had an opportunity a few years back, and I blew it. The real story behind the book process is that the most important person in my life died exactly 2039 days ago, right in the middle of the whole fucking thing. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that before. As a result, I didn’t do what I was supposed to be doing, things didn’t turn out the way they could have had I applied myself a hell of a lot better, and now I’m way off the radar. That’s cool. I’ve spent the last few years learning how to do this shit professionally, and I think I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I’ve learned a few valuable lessons in the process.

I also don’t believe that you can’t do anything more in publishing if your first book isn’t a runaway best-seller. That’s what everyone says, but my first try was a rudderless, half-assed effort on multiple levels. The next time I do it, I’ll know exactly what I’m doing, and it’ll be a completely different story.

This whole writing thing happened almost completely by accident. My life was pretty much a dead-end disaster when the whole job-blog-book movement came around, and I got lucky and caught a wave. The problem was that I thought I was entitled to something I didn’t deserve, and I acted accordingly – like a lazy piece of shit who (pardon the cliché) was born on third base and thought he hit a triple. Just ask my editor. That shit won’t happen again, believe me.

Am I pissed off that there are people who can’t write their way out of a fucking paper bag making way more money doing this than I am? When we’re talking about ability – in a vacuum, I mean – the answer is yes. I read certain books and wonder what the fuck the publisher was thinking. Dwelling on it, however would be delusional. Some people simply know how to sit down and do this shit every single day, even though they have “real” jobs, spouses, kids, and myriad other distractions that make things hard. I didn’t know how to do that. I probably still don’t. But I’m trying. I’m trying to make this a habit, because it’s still something I want to do, and the only way to hit that mark is to just keep churning shit out and getting better.

As for everything else, the 2040th day will be just as hard as the 2039th day, which was just as hard as the first. I’m used to it by now. It’s reality when I wake up in the morning, and it’s reality when I go to sleep. That shit doesn’t go away. You just have to adapt to it and keep fucking moving. I didn’t, but now I am.

And that’s your steaming pile of horseshit for today. Have a nice weekend, everyone.