Often I think my sister is too generous in her praise, likely she is stroking my ego and bolstering my confidence as recently she floated the idea that maybe I should seriously pursue my dream of writing and pontificating on a more serious and hopefully paid basis. I, however, have no illusions about my talent as a wordsmith and do not see that as a viable venture beyond thinking about it in that smiling twilight state just before sleep. If I had any illusions about my success the recent write up about profit and loss in the publishing industry, “P&Ls and how books make (or don’t) money: part the first: the mass market original complete failure“, will anchor me to reality, especially when read with “The life expectancies of books” which will remind any aspiring or working author that the memory of your works will fade quicker than O-Town’s last single. [For those of you playing at home it was "I Showed Her" from their sophomore follow-up, 02, and yes it sucked but it's O-Town. What did you expect?]

Don’t get me wrong, I certainly think it is commendable that there are people willing to take the plunge and make their livelihood off writing–those people have a greater drive and are less risk averse than I. For me, it is a nice fantasy to have in that I really do enjoy writing and the sites have given me an outlet and an opportunity to think critically and creatively, something I was sorely lacking after I finished grad school. But writing for a living takes a thick skin and a will to see your product through to the end. I get distracted easily, often running after the next shiny thing that glints in the corner of my eye–never did find a way to reign that monkey in–so the idea of a steady flow of income being dependent on my attention span is a frightening notion.

I would like to branch out into more creative writing and I did try that briefly here but scrapped it before long for a lack of time and focus. The GMing experience sort of dredged up the desire again and got me thinking about how I might do it with an eye on keeping things short, tight, and focused. I’m at a loss though seeing as my workdays are long and my nights even longer, finding time to grind out three reviews at Pop and a handful of posts here is challenge enough let alone pounding out short stories as well. However, if it is something that I want to try I really should at least make an effort to even capture scraps of thought and ideas. Letting them flit away seems like such a waste.

Maybe I’ll return to the more creative aspects to 0.333, as long as my attention can remain focused long enough. It was exhilarating conceptualizing a world filled with characters and intersecting plotlines while I briefly GMed, which if anything showed me that I’d would make a better writer than GM–focus thing again.  So I suppose I should thank my sister for the gentle kick in the pants to think a little bigger than I normally do but I won’t be quitting my day job anytime too soon.