Now's As Good A Time As Any

Sometimes I feel like the situation in the world (that’s not to say in my life; I’m pretty okay) is so disappointing that the only way to fix things is to create some kind of alternative reality, some kind of Utopia in refuge from all the craziness. I don’t know what that would mean exactly: maybe get together with a bunch of people, buy up a bunch of land (maybe in a Third World country) and start everything over? Or, on the other hand, maybe I could construct this Utopia in my own mind and then put it all down in words. That seems like kind of a dodge, though.

I feel like I have a pretty good idea of how to be happy in my life, and I also think I know what it would take to be a virtuous person. But the two often appear to be fundamentally incompatible. Moreover, I doubt whether I have the courage to accomplish either one. So, like most of humanity, I continue to muddle through. But presumptuous as it may be, I have a nagging feeling that I could do more.

I think I may try to write poetry. My generation is messed up and somebody needs to express it.

GRIPE #1: INUYASHA SUCKS.

Naaaah.

Now just what was law school like again? I think I blocked some of it out.

Okay, I’m a glutton for punishment (or for saying I’m going to do things and not doing them, or for starting things and not finishing them). New novel starts tonight.

Did I already say that maybe I’m going to try to write a novel again this year? Make sure I really do it this time. Maybe I’ll write it about law school.

Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita is a pretty damn good book!

This isn’t really the time for me to be writing a novel. My heart really isn’t in it, and I have tons of other stuff to do that I don’t really have that much energy for anyway. My life goal isn’t to write a novel, specifically, anyway…just any kind of book.

I don’t read that many novels these days. I’m not very verbose, except if someone can persuade me that they really want me to go on talking about something for hours.

I want to be somebody who people are interested in. In fact, I’d like to be someone who makes money telling people stuff (thus, teaching). But is storytelling where it’s at for me?

Somebody e-mailed me wanting to buy my law school notes for their website, and I told them I can’t sell the notes because there’s stuff in there that probably isn’t my intellectual property. But I was thinking maybe I could try writing some original articles and things. I think about writing a law school book now and again, but then I realize that it would mean thinking about law again…ick.

Okay, so now I’ve probably written nearly as much in my blog as I have in my novel…and I’m supposed to be writing 1,667 words a day in the novel to get to 50,000 by the end of the month. Maybe I should just aim to beat my word total from last year (17,983).

I’m about halfway through my daily word count and I have just under three hours to hit the magic number. I don’t know about posting it on my website just yet. Maybe excerpts.

So can I get myself to spend my long middles-of-days writing instead of napping? What if I drink more coffee?

Am I ready to write? I dunno. I keep telling myself I need to start writing query letters about my novel or my big law school exposГ© book so I can get my $50,000 advance and quit school (er, again). Or at least take a year off to write the book. Or (on a separate note) take a year off to teach English in some other country. Then again, I could always do that once I’ve started actually teaching. It would be nice if I had a Significant Other who would like to do the same, and we could both go to Korea or Japan and live together and both teach and not be lonely.

I kind of wish I had taken some time after I got out of law school to try to eke out a living substitute teaching, tutoring, and doing test prep classes for Kaplan (and, of course, working on my novel). I just didn’t know you could substitute teach with a mere bachelor’s degree.

I hate my graduate program so much right now. They could not possibly give us a worse schedule for Winter Quarter. I not only won’t be able to work during the week, but I won’t be able to have dinner with my grandparents any night of the week. They have absolutely no respect for our time.

I know I’m not the only one who’s not happy. I’m seriously thinking of trying to get together some kind of organized protest among my cohort. I suppose I’ll wait until these accreditation people (NCATE) are gone.

I am really cheesed off. I don’t know if it’s enough to drive me back to law school, though.

This is all more grist for the mill, though, for when I write my novel and make a million zillion dollars and never have to work again.

I don’t know about Salman Rushdie’s new novel so far…it seems a bit precious at times, with kind of heavy-handed political references. Maybe I’m now experiencing what it’s like for someone who grew up in India to read Midnight’s Children, finding that all the little references fail to be exotic. Or else when he tries to write about American stuff he doesn’t quite get it. Like the problem with The Ground Beneath Her Feet, at least to me, was that Rushdie’s an awesome writer, but he doesn’t rock, so it seemed phony for him to try to write a real rock ‘n’ roll novel.

And it’s funny I should mention that because I’m thinking about trying to write the Great American Rock ‘n’ Roll Novel.