Falling down on the job

I've been up for hours, about two of them (I went to bed late), and I feel productive and energized. I'm not sure why unless it has to do with the week being half over and moving much closer to getting the keys to the house and actually moving. Or it could be that my brain was activated earlier than usual this morning when I had to respond to a query about editing a trilogy and realized I hadn't updated my writing resume in a long time. I'm caught up now but I'm also a little disappointed that I cannot add all the books that are coming out this year. It would definitely add enough lines to create another page. I'm up to five now, and that doesn't even include all the reviews I've written over the past several years (200+), most of which have been written in the past two years. I do, nevertheless, realize I've fallen down on the job a bit, and not just about updating my resume and organizing references from writers with whom I've worked.

It's a bit of a shock to realize that I can't add the articles and editorials I've written for the ham club newsletter over the past three years because no one sees them outside of the world of ham radio, especially in the rather narrow world of ham radio in Colorado Springs, or the pieces I've written for local newsletters and throw-aways, and that I can't include the posts I write nearly every day in my different blogs. There are quite a few. I'm writing a lot but not the kinds of things I can use on my resume, even if you count the articles I write at Helium. I need to change my focus or at least change my writing focus.

Okay, quit the smiling and celebrating. It doesn't mean I'll stop writing here. I need somewhere to gather my thoughts and try out ideas and words where not too many people venture or read. It's like sending my work out to an uncaring public that will, more often than not, glance past my articles and stories and never comment even to those closest to them. I don't write for the comments. They're nice, but they're not my main raison d’être . I write for the one or two people who might gain in some small way by seeing that someone else has been where they're headed or have arrived. It helps to know you're not alone. That's what writing has been for me ever since I stopped worrying about who might be reading my diaries and journals. Aside from fame and fortune (HA!) and the eternal gratitude of the Nobel and Pulitzer prize committee judges, to name a few, I suspect most writers write because it connects them with others and gives them a witness to their lives. Money and prizes are nice, very nice sometimes, and fame is a heady draught that has turned (and inflated) many a head, but when you get down to it, writing is about connections, a cry in the wilderness carried on puckish winds to . . . someone.

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean anything with regard to keeping records, and I have fallen down on the job -- at least temporarily. It's not January, but I resolve to get back into the habit of recording sales and publications as soon as they occur. Someone might be looking.

That is all. Disperse.