Past Imperfect

Wednesday, January 1, 2003. 31 Clinton Hill Court. Cold, very rainy. Dark.

First of the new year.

Right here, my New Year’s resolution is to finish a draft of my novel, NMWIT (no matter what it takes). I think I might be able to use that abbreviation somewhere? Nimwit?

Damned if I know how I’m going to pull it off, but I will find a way. Shouldn’t be that hard, per se, because I’m done roughly a third of it, right? Except, in it’s own taunting, I hate you way, it really is so damn hard, keeping everything straight, interesting, new, and what not.

[This was an untitled work about a man with multiple personality disorder attempting to start a community theater and keep his marriage from falling apart. I know where the hard drive that this is on is located, and have yet to go find it. -K]

***

I found my journal that I kept during law school, at least until roughly halfway through first semester of law school. The first entry is January 1, 2003, the January before I started law school. There are some sporadic entries until August/September, when I finally started law school. As near as I can tell, I stopped in late October, 2003, about the time when the work really started to crush me. I made one entry in late February, 2004.

Then, J.L. convinced me to start Writ in July of 2005. I converted to serial novel in January of 2006, only to drop it in April 2006, when finals were beginning. That summertime was spent studying for the bar exam, and eventually passing it, then going to work at N.C.I. I did pick it up around the time I was ready to leave N.C.I., and I guess my greatest regret of this journalizing/diarizing/bloggerizing is that I didn’t write more about my days at N.C.I. Ah well, some things are too precious to be shared, and even when I forget the specifics, I will still carry the love for the place.

For the next few weeks, I’m going to cut and paste some choice excerpts for each entry so you can see 1. what I was thinking back then, 2. how much I (have)n’t changed as a person, and 3. how far I have(n’t) come as a writer. It’s strange reading through this, because it wasn’t my life. I read the words, I know on some level that this was my life, but… it doesn’t seem like it really was. This is someone else’s life that I’m looking in on, a slightly horrified look frozen on my face.

***

Sunday, January 19, 2003. 8:36 P.M. 31 Clinton Hill Court. Cold, dark. Raiders v. Titans at halftime, 24-17 Raiders.

I’m afraid that I won’t do well on this novel. That is one of the two big sticky points (the other that I am not really sure about this middle part.). Maybe I’m spreading it too thin. Maybe I’m not spreading it thin enough (?). I’m sure if I ever re-read all of this, it’s going to seem very VERY disjointed, as if I were a druggie (which I’m not, but I could be if I tried hard).

Game’s back on. Maybe there’s a link between TV, evil TV, and me not wanting to write. TV is easy. Writing is not. Damnit. Plus, with 8+ months to go, I’m just being really really lazy. Should have set better deadline.

[I have always been lazy. –K]