Doing your work isn’t always fun. In fact, it’s usually not fun.

But that’s not quite right either. While I’m doing it, it’s fun. Getting to that point—pulling out the laptop, opening the file, reading through what I’ve written so far, typing the first few words—that’s not fun.

But, when you turn pro, you realize this. You accept that it’s not fun. You do it anyway. You realize that the not-fun setting up is just a prelude to a lot of fun.

And, if you keep on pushing through that not-fun, you eventually look back and realize that you have a lot of work done. Like today: I’m over seven thousand words into the rough draft of Giant Armors, which amazes me even as I type this. That’s about a quarter of the entire novel; maybe more, depending on how the rest of it goes.

Tonight, I’m cleaning up a last few grammatical stains and blemishes, then submitting the first chapter to my writing group. Hooray! I have actual, real content to show to other people.

And that’s fun.

I’ll also note I’ve re-arranged this journal layout yet again. Now that the VR story‘s done, I don’t really need the center column, so I removed it and put the rest of the stuff that was there over in the left-hand side of the page. I’m still not completely satisfied with this layout, but then I’ve never been completely satisfied with my journal’s layout. Ah well; I can always do a bit more tweaking.

From a song I woke up to this morning:

Blood, sweat, and tears
Really don’t matter
Just the things that you do
In this garden.

I take this to mean that you’re not judged based on how much effort you put into your work; you’re judged based on your work. Very true. And not necessarily a bad thing.

I just discovered that the Atom feed on this site no longer worked, thanks to advances in the Atom specification. It should work now.

How did I discover this? I’ve subscribed to my own journal in my RSS reader. This keeps my own work “in my face,” so I immediately know if something goes wrong.

And Resistance struck again.

I received some upsetting news from my parents last night. Not exactly a death in the family; just some further developments in an unfortunate family dispute. It was a bit depressing.

So, today, I wrote another few hundred words of Giant Armors.

Not because I wanted to. I very much didn’t want to. I was upset by this news, for real and legitimate reasons.

But if I’m going to turn pro, I’m going to have to do my work no matter what. Even if I’m a bit depressed. Even if there are other distracting problems in my life. Even when it’s difficult.

I did my work. Not as much as I would have liked to, perhaps, but I did it.

I feel very good about that.

I saw The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe this weekend. High production values created a solid film. I have my quibbles, but they’re just quibbles.

What struck me most about the movie was that it could have been made five years ago. The technology certainly existed then. Narnia presented no particular technical challenges beyond those faced in, say, The Fellowship of the Ring (though it certainly benefitted from the problems worked out in the Rings films).

So why wasn’t Narnia made five years ago? Because the right people didn’t have faith in it then. They had to see a successful, big-budget fantasy film before they’d believe that people would go to see Narnia. If The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe had come out before The Fellowship of the Ring, imagine how much more popular it would have been. Imagine how much more money it would have made, as people marvelled at it.

All it took was faith.

Quite possibly the single biggest limiation on my lifestyle is finding the time to work on all my projects.

Note: I have time to work on them. The problem is making sure that I get around to each and every one of these projects regularly.

Right now, I have the following major projects:

• Animation
• Writing Giant Armors
• Improving Syllable.org
• Writing a website for a friend
• Improving security and general maintenance on this web server
• Blogging
• Keeping up with the anime market
• Scheduling Guy’s Night Out
• Cooking and baking

Now, some of that gets done “in the cracks” anyway; if I’m bored, I’ll pull up Anime News Network or watch an episode of anime.

The problem comes with some of the more difficult jobs, like website development. It’s very easy to let that slip for a week or two.

And if it slips, so what? Well, some of these projects are being done for other people. Since I’m “turning professional” (in other words, everything I do is professional-grade), I don’t want to leave my work for them hanging for a long time.

How to solve this? Well, I have a few systems I’m working on. I have a card listing each of my projects taped to the side of my monitor, so I can easily glance at it. I’ve written my projects up on my whiteboard, along with the dates I last contacted my client on that project.

None of them are working, though. I’m beginning to wonder if I would benefit from having something huge that bugs me constantly.

Don’t know. I’m still working on this. Any suggestions?

Bankrupt airlines should not be given bankrupty protection. They should be allowed to die.

I do not want to pay (through my taxes to the government which provides this bankrupty protection) for a bankrupt airline. I’d rather two-thirds of the existing airlines die, if they can’t figure out a way to stay profitable.

Just got back from a visit with my parents, where I partook of an excellent Chinese-style meal, helped my Mom with her Motorola Razr phone, and filmed myself in their basement. Filmed myself in their basement? Yeah. It’s for an advertisement that Otherspace is making for a local anime club; part of it involves a shot of an otaku sitting in a basement somewhere, looking bored. So I volunteered to be that otaku. Turned out pretty well; I look appropriately spacey.

Meanwhile, I spent the end of this week recovering from the beginning of the week. Which is good, of course; lets me catch a breather and get back into the swing of things.

As a result, I haven’t done much of anything, though. Very little progress on Giant Armors, and practically nothing on anything else. Oh well; it’s not like I have deadlines on these things.

No, this isn’t going anywhere. It’s late on a Friday night, and I’m tired. Haven’t gotten quite enough sleep lately, so I’m functioning in that zone where you’re awake, but…slightly drained. Like someone’s cast a ”Shortened Attention Span” spell on you.

OK, enough of this rambling. Time for some SLEEP!

It almost got me! Almost. Resistance came this close to derailing me today.

It started yesterday, as I realized that I need to completely rewrite chapter one of my young adult novel, Giant Armors, within the next day or two if I want to get it to my writer’s group in time for them to review it by our next meeting. So I knew I’d have to get some writing done at lunch today.

So this morning I slept through my alarm. I sent an apologetic e-mail in to work, then went out to my truck to discover a $100 ticket because I don’t have a city decal. Great. I got in to work to discover a surprisingly unpleasant e-mail from a customer. Looking back, I think it wasn’t directed at me, but it was still a shock. And, while the symptoms of my illness are gone, I still don’t have all my energy back.

I was feeling despair. I didn’t want to do anything. And I realized that Resistance almost had me. It was keeping me from my novel. It was using these events as roadblocks to finishing that chapter. And it almost had me.

My back straightened. At lunch, I sat down and re-wrote the first four hundred words of chapter one of Giant Armors.

It’s been a bad day. And it’s been a very good day.

Saalon writes about his pretty bad year. Here’s the comment I left on his blog:

I’m reminded of a concept from the book “Mastery:” The learning process is not a steady ride upwards. It is a series of plateaus punctuated by upward movement. Most of one’s time is spent on the plateau.

So, the book contends, learn to appreciate the plateau. Understand that you are just building up to visible growth.

When a house is built, the builders must first dig down into the earth and work below ground before the building begins to rise.