town with no cheer
this has not been the cheeriest of weeks.
i'm a bit homesick because it was just passover; my family's combination xmas/thanksgiving/new years eve and i was an ocean away. again.
also, i have fallen down the no-work hole. this place i occasionally find myself in when i have no work and no project and no inspiration and a sense of impending doom.
plus i found out two of my best friends broke up and one was eaten by a lion. (actually, i made the lion part up)
so, you ask, what do i do when i'm in the town of no cheer? i get myself all revved up. i stomp around a bit and say things to myself like, "go," and "you are full of awrsome," and "i wonder if i got any email?" then i check my email but there isn't any.
then, i stomp around some more and say, "no, really. go!" and pick up my hat and find my wallet and then sit back down because i have absolutely no idea where to go.
this lasts about five hours then i give up. or maybe go out to buy some coffee and feel a little guilty about spending money on coffee when i'm not working.
ideally, i'd be writing something marvellous or at least profitable. i'd have some wild scheme to fiddle with. but i don't. so i pretend and that works like caffeine does. it's a good rush for half an hour and then you crash. like this morning when i opened up my in-progress ethiopia article only to discover that a) i hate it and b) nobody would publish it even it wasn't sucky.
i did find some woman today on line who publishes a zine and asked her out for coffee. she seemed to know folks and to be my sort of person. perhaps she will write back.
i'm sure i'll pick up soon. that's the way it goes.
Hey Zack -- you could -- nay, should -- write a column for the local paper. (If Mark Morford of the Chronicle can do it, so can you.) I think you usually have to submit 10 at the time of application, and writing those will keep you occupied. You'll probably have a refreshing voice in that you're a wry, subversive ex-pat. You can weave your travels into observations on recent news stories.
To me it sounds like you need to stir up your imagination. So maybe you can write a crazy pamphlet or two and stand on a street corner trying to get people to read them. Coming up with the pamphlet alone would be fun.
Me = failing armchair career counselor
Lots of love!
have you tried pitching for work on elance.com or odesk.com already? tons of writing projects there, though they may suck.
Hey there XZ, Korg knows the place you're in and it is a big no fun zone. Korg sometimes goes and does things Korg regrets later when Korg is in this place. Korg does not recommend doing so.
Korg says "Korg smash!" and then writes in his journal about ephemera and non-sequiturs while drinking hot sake. This helps Korg to some degree.
On another, less prehistoric note, EH and I are moving to a nice new apartment in the cloudy hills of San Francisco. When not cloudy, one can see for miles from the roof deck.