Getting to the Point (Life Musings)

As of this writing I have eight drafts sitting here in my blog archive that span three months.  In that time I've only made two posts.

Eight times I'd tried to compose a witty, insightful piece of prose but couldn't get it tied up to the point where it made a point.  I've tried a few different topics too: struggles with my career, frustrations with the endless plot holes I'm finding in "The Kai'us Planet" and musings about martial arts.

All started out with a spark that interested me enough to try typing them up, but then they each fizzled into a meandering monolog that went nowhere.  Eight.  Times.

It's annoying but not as frightening as it may be for a writer.

Getting ready for the wedding did indeed eat up a fair amount of my time and energy and now I'm waiting with baited breath for NaNoWriMo to start in less than a week!

Still, I'd like to get a post up and I might as well at least touch on these topics that I've been struggling so hard to articulate in a thought-provoking fashion.

1) My career: I do rather live by the adage of "It turns out I don't want a career, all I want is a pay check".  Though it's true that apart from the retail job I had for six months the year after I graduated college and the in-home caregiver job I had for nine months to tide me over till I could find more steady work, all the jobs I've had for the whole of my adult life have been (at least vaguely) in the field I went to school for.  Problem is that I take major pay-cuts with each new job I get.  I'm pay-cutting myself into poverty and it's downright frustrating.

The easy answer is to switch careers, but to what?
Nursing or midwifery seem to be the obvious answers, but with my open disdain of the medical realm I really don't think I'd be happy there long.

Things are further complicated by the fact that I actually do very much like where I'm presently working.  I'm good at what I do, I like my co-workers AND boss/manager and have a fair amount of personal freedom.  The only real downside is the pay; so I'm continuing to noodle over what I should do there.

2) "The Kai'us Planet": I'm continually amazed at all the plot holes that have carried through "The Kai'us Planet" throughout the years, but that's why I'm rewriting it from scratch for NaNo this year.  There will be absolutely no copy/paste in this version from versions prior.  I'm going to force myself to assess each and every scene, plot point and character motivation to make sure it's as solid a piece of sci-fi as can be churned out in 30 days. (Then I'll spend the next year or two editing the hell out of the thing!)

3) Martial Arts: The longer I continue with Karate (I've been back for almost eight months now), the more I love it.  I'm even making compromises that I never thought I'd do!  For one I'm keeping my nails trimmed back shorter than the length I typically wear them just so that making a good, solid fist is easier.  Another gasp-worthy change is I'm getting up a full half-hour earlier each morning just so I can do exercises to increase my strength and flexibility.

I've got a self-created three-day plan going presently: Day 1 is focused on legs and hips.  My goal is to work up to a full split, but honestly my hips have always given me issue, so anything I can do to improve their mobility is great!
Day 2 is arms and upper body.  I'm appalled at how poorly I do push-ups in class, so I work on my own to get better at that.  Still have a long way to go and I continue to add exercises that'll hopefully help there.
Day 3 is a rest day and I usually need it.  This doesn't mean I sleep in that extra half hour - I don't want to mess up my schedule by doing something silly like that - instead I do chores on those mornings or just spend a little extra time on the computer before work.  I have a feeling Day 3 days will be a godsend during NaNoWriMo!

I'm still hellbent on trying to test for my next rank in May.  It's "only" seven months away and I still have a lot of work to do, but it's far more prep time than I've had for any of my other tests, so I think I'll do okay.

So those are the three main topics that I've had on my mind a lot lately that I've been unable to pull together in a way that was entertaining and awesome for this blog.

I'm hoping my second dive into NaNoWriMo brings out my witty humor again and maybe even some random short-stories will come your way when I need a break from that annual 50k word marathon!