Why Not Ten

It's hard to concentrate on anything else when you're trying to make a big change in your life. And I'm trying to make many big changes. One is trying to make my job better. I raised the issue at my job that I need help. I'm not imagining that I need help. I've been working crap jobs for nearly 40 years, and in that time I've had some difficult jobs, some cushy jobs, some pretty pleasant work situations, and some impossible ones. I've got a pretty good idea of my strengths and my limitations, and what I'm good at and what I'm not good at, and about how much can and should be done in a day. When I say that I am now doing the job of two people, that isn't merely a boast or an exaggeration. That is what I'm doing, and it's wearing on me.

I've also been trying to start my new novel for a year and four months now. Some would call that "writer's block" but I find that term not useful at this point. The happy thing is that I have finally got started on my new novel (though it wouldn't be the first time to get started and then throw it all away and have to start over). My new novel is called... well, it's a secret, and it's about 10 authors who are writing novels. If that sounds similar to The Doughnuts (then you read The Doughnuts, and I'm taking you out to dinner!) that's because it's based on the structure of The Doughnuts. And each of these authors has previously written a novel that hasn't been published yet, and in each case, every person they have given that novel to, to read, has vanished mysteriously.

That means I have to come up with ten names for the ten novels each of these characters has written. Sometimes I think I come up with these crazy ideas just to keep myself going.