Why Am I Doing This Again?

Ahh, the stony path I have chosen!

Today is November 8, and I should have 16k words by the time I go to sleep. However, I know I won't. Yesterday I opted to watch NFL football games all day, an activity my pastor finds abhorrent, but one that I look forward to from the day after the Superbowl. (NFL football and the Triple Crown are the only two sports I have any interest at all in watching.) Yet watching the games precluded any chance of making 14k yesterday.

This morning, I put up the Press, and had foolishly left one of the most difficult serial stories to format today. I love the series, the sheer whimsical craziness of it, but whatever word processing program the author uses simply doesn't mesh with mine, and so I cannot automatically add HTML paragraph breaks; what's more, the author uses few commas, which I have to add, and leaves spaces in the wrong parts to I have to correct all of that. It is a measure of how much I love the story that I'm willing to do this.

But that was this morning. I don't write in the mornings, so I'm just using the Press as an excuse, I guess.

I have my formula for word count; I know where the story has to go. But I sure don't want to be doing this.  Am I losing my writing, and just becoming an editor?

And now the Steelers are on TV against the Bengals, which team I have hated since the late seventies -- do you think I'm going to do any serious writing tonight?

No.

Have I mentioned, Tejon, that I am NOT doing this again next year, not even for you?