It's Hard to Do Nothing
Hi, folks. Well, my blog post is a little
late this week due to the fact that I’ve been studying for, finally taking, and passing, my ADC exam. Whew! I’m glad
it’s out of the way and I can return to my writing. I forced myself not to
write for almost two weeks, and I can’t wait to get back!
The final edits on the beta version of The Dragon of Doughton Park should be completed this week and sent out to beta readers. Thanks so much to my editing team! I really couldn’t have done it without you. And the cover art for both Dragon and a re-design of The Draculata Nest should also be ready soon. I’m lucky to have the talented artist, Ray DeLotell, working on that. He’s been sending me cover concepts regularly for the past few weeks, and I’m going to tease y’all with a few of them in the next several blogs. Check this one out, reworking the original theme for the cover of DN…
Now, I was planning to elaborate more on the
young women/old wolves theme from last week’s blog, but I have something I need
to share instead.
Do you have a minute? Great.
I’ve been under some stress lately. Oh, not real stress. Ninety-five percent of the
rest of the world would look at my life and say it was pretty cushy. I mean, I
don’t want for food, shelter, safety – that sort of thing. I have friends and
family, and I’m in remarkably good health considering my age and the sins of my
youth. But, everything’s relative, right? Here’s the deal…
I’ve never regarded myself as a type-A kind
of guy, the kind who has to be juggling fifteen different activities at the
same time and excelling in all of them. Ask either of my ex-wives who spent a
great deal of time and energy trying to get my ass off the couch and do something – I can kick back and relax
with the best of them. Or, at least, I used
to.
But when I lost my job in 2009 and decided
to make a late-life career change, I dove into it head first, stroking and
kicking all-out. I’ve worked pretty hard since then to complete two-and-a-half
years of additional college work, including a nine-month internship, while
maintaining a 4.0 GPA and writing the larger part of two novels. (Hey, that
sounds pretty impressive when I say it like that, doesn’t it? Whatever. The
point is…)
I had one final academic hurdle to clear
this past weekend before returning to the nine-to-five world, my ADC
certification test. I’d been putting it off, using the excuse that I wanted to
get this second novel ready for publication first, but that excuse began to not
work anymore as the editing and cover design process dragged on. I finally bit
the bullet, scheduled the test, started preparing for it and facing the nagging
fears of the consequences of failure.
Saturday morning I took the test. Like most
things I worry about ahead of time, it wasn’t so bad. I actually did pretty
well on it, and when it was over I decided to reward myself with some “down
time.” I decided the rest of the weekend I would do absolutely nothing.
I couldn’t do it.
Now, when I go back to work on Monday and
everyone asks me what I did, I’ll automatically answer, “nothing,” but I will
be lying. And part of the reason will be that I’m ashamed to admit I tried and
failed.
I mean, my effort lasted all of three
minutes! As soon as I got on the bus after leaving the testing center, the pull
of alleged obligations hit me. Fine. I made the obligatory phone calls and
texts to friends and loved ones, letting them know I’d passed the test. There,
that was done. Time for nothing. In no time, my kindle was out of my pack and
into my hand and I was reading (Stephen King’s 11/22/63). Wait, that’s not nothing.
I’ll do nothing when I get home.
At home, the laptop was suddenly out and I
was on Facebook. Well, after all, I should let the world know I was doing
nothing, right? After that, I’d really
do nothing. No, after I caught up on my emails… and went for a bike ride… and
played my guitar… and finished watching the better part of the third season of Chuck. I went to bed around 11:30 vowing
to do nothing on Sunday.
Well, I lay in bed this Sunday morning and
actually did nothing for about ten minutes, so maybe I’m not a complete
failure, but most of that ten minutes was spent in contemplating all the things
I could be doing if I wasn’t doing
nothing. So, I gave up, got up, and did something. Lots of somethings, really.
And eventually, I did what many of us do when we can’t do something… or
nothing… I blogged about it!
Well, that’s all for now. As a reminder, this is the last chance to
volunteer as a beta reader for The Dragon of Doughton Park. Just leave a
comment or email me at jhundley50@gmail.com.
As usual, if you want to learn more about The Draculata Nest so you can keep up with the blog or get ready
for the sequel, click on one of the links below.
Until then… happy reading!
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