Four Months

That's right my faithful friends. I have just four months give or take a few days... or weeks... I don't know I'm bad with time. Anyway just four months until I'm in New York trying to impress agents with my brilliance... or confuse them with my bullshit... doesn't really matter to me which works as long as I get an agent... or a contract from an editor... I'm really not picky.

The thing is I'm a bit of an over thinker. So in my head I've already gone over everything that can go wrong, everything that can go right, everything that can seem like it's wrong but is actually right, everything that seems right but is actually wrong, and of course everything that is just okay.

Yes I've pictured myself returning home victorious with an agent eagerly reading my book then hounding editors nonstop to get published, or coming home utterly defeated and questioning my commitment to writing, or coming home anticipating acceptance or rejection, and of course not making it home because the plane has vanished into an alternate dimension like in Stephen King's book "The Langoliers".

I admit that last one isn't very likely but I like to never rule anything out.

This brings me to the problem of being an over thinker and having a countdown to a potentially life altering event. All possibilities get covered and my mind works so furiously on discovering and preparing for any eventuality that I forget to enjoy the present, I forget to start working on my next novel... working title of "Dragon Song" (it's gonna be totally awesome) and forget that four months is both a long and short time.

So what have I been doing to prepare? Well I've been agonizing over whether or not my pitch is good enough. I have a huge fear of public speaking, I'm good at it but it terrifies me and while I always prepare in advance I also always end up just winging it. I've also started stalking every agent that I hope to pitch to. 

It's not all work though. Of course not, all work and no play makes Dustyn a dull boy... or at least irritating as hell with nonstop talking about all of the aforementioned possibilities. So I'm researching agents, and almost as importantly, I'm looking for Irish Pubs near the hotel because well... I'll be in New York, I have Irish roots, how could I not make it a point to at least hit a few Irish pubs in the short time I have?

So dear readers. If any of you are from New York do me a favor and leave comments on your favorite pubs that are near The Roosevelt hotel. Preferably in easy walking distance. My hope is that I can meet an agent, hit it off, and we can work out a deal over drinks listening to awesome Irish music and commiserate the next morning about how much we drank and forever have a funny shared story about staggering back to the hotel and barely being able to find our rooms... alternatively I suppose it's equally possible that we'd get into a drunken argument over the respective impacts of Poe, King, and Lovecraft on the horror genre as we know it and whether or not Twilight has forever ruined the use of vampires in modern fiction, punches will be thrown and stories about me will circulate through agent circles forever preventing me from succeeding as an author in a traditional publishing scenario... or something like that.

Anyway... New York, Irish Pubs, Roosevelt Hotel... Go.

Adjusting to days

So my move from night shift to day shift has come and gone. I'm in the middle of my second week of days. Here is what I have learned.

1. Adjusting my body clock is a bit more difficult than expected. First weeks went fine... so far the second week has seen me going to sleep and waking up at whatever time my body wants unless the alarm wakes me up first.

2. Letting go of night shift is hard. On nights I was by myself, large and in charge... now I'm just a peon... that's not the worst bit though. No the worst bit is that I made many friends of my night customers. Some even have my phone number... they are not happy with my replacement whom I am told has taken to wearing ear buds while helping customers.

3. I still don't like higher ups. They annoy me and slow down the entire work process.

4. Before the switch I had wild dreams of immediately starting work on my next book while continuing to work on publishing the first... I haven't written a damn thing thanks to the screwy sleeping schedule.

5. I'm not sure I like being a daywalker. Or rather. I like it, but I wish my day shift work was similar to my night shift work.

6. Not a fan of coworkers. It's not that I don't like them as people, it's that... with a few exceptions... I don't like having them at work with me. I liked working alone where the only coworker that could irritate me was... well me.

Good lessons I guess. I'm hoping the internal clock will adjust soon and maybe I can get to work writing by next week. With luck.

I failed

So I failed. I think it's been a couple weeks since I've made a post. I've been uber busy with my regular job and finally got switched to day shift. After a couple days I haven't quite gotten use to it yet so I'm also waiting on my body to adjust to the new sleeping schedule.

The upside is that once I'm adjusted I can get back to a writing schedule that works for me and that will definitely help me get published sooner. Until then it's just keep coping the best I can until my body adjusts to the fact that I'm a day walker now.

So really that's it. Sorry I don't have more to say after a couple weeks. Hopefully soon I'll have more but for now enjoy your evening, morning, or night whatever it is for you.