Somehow
January 2, 2001
7:24 a.m.
My company shuts down for the week between Christmas and New Years, so everything officially begins today with a trip into the day job. Yee haw. Yes, it was a little rugged this morning, but I've made it this far. How hard can the rest be, huh? Don't answer that.   I threw myself pretty deeply into scripting and its attendant code this past week--between bouts with my cold and shoveling snow and whatnot. Every time I do this, I come away with a totally refreshed sense of respect for people who do this for a living. (Not to mention the driving need to write cyberpunk--but that's another story all together). I love the stuff, but writing code is painstakingly detailed work, especially for someone who has basically become a self-taught coder. Yes, I used to be pretty up to date back in the good old pre-Web days, but let's not fool ourselves here...when I code, it's often a painful process of trial and error. It's a lot like how I write. During my yucky days of being sick, I read two books about writing: Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul, and About the Author. Chicken Soup is just what you might expect. Lots of inspirational stories about the craft and the art and all that good stuff. Definitely recommend it. About the Author (ATA) is different, though. It profiles some 125 authors, each getting two pages, a brief introduction, a listing of some of their work, and where to find more information about them. There are pretty big names in that there book. While Chicken Soup was meant to be inspirational, and ATA meant to be educational, I found something in ATA to be almost more inspirational than anything in Chicken Soup. Yeah, I know. I'm weird. But bear me out. What I thought was so fascinating was seeing how many of these great authors had struggled for so long before becoming so well known and popular. What I found quietly empowering is how many of them had not even published until they were 45 or 50 or 55 years old. I can probably pull out 25 or 50 of the writers noted in this book and truthfully say "I'm ahead of where this author was at this stage of his life." Of course, that means nothing. Like the stock market, past performance is no indicator of future performance. But, somehow, it feels good to know. Have a great day.  or is it "Those who can't, read about it?" Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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The future has arrived; it's just not evenly distributed. William Gibson |
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