{"id":4109,"date":"2012-05-03T05:30:05","date_gmt":"2012-05-03T10:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=4109"},"modified":"2012-05-02T19:31:05","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T00:31:05","slug":"a-word-of-warning-about-that-writing-thing-pt-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2012\/05\/03\/a-word-of-warning-about-that-writing-thing-pt-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Word of Warning about that Writing Thing Pt. 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"A vernal pool at the top of Enchanted Rock.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/images\/enchantedrock.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"387\" \/>[If you missed <a title=\"A Word of Warning about that Writing Thing Pt. 1.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2012\/05\/02\/a-word-of-warning-about-that-writing-thing-pt-1\/\">part 1 of this yesterday, read that before reading this<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This is part 2 of a 3-part series.]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p>If you decided to <em>not <\/em>read yesterday&#8217;s entry, here are the important parts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When I was 20, I gave myself 20 years to make it as a writer. If I didn&#8217;t make it writing by 40, I&#8217;d bow out forever. (A cryptic way of saying I&#8217;d kill myself.)<\/li>\n<li>This is a good quote:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>\u201c\u2018In the time of your life, live!\u2019 That time is short and it doesn\u2019t   return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read   this, and the monosyllable of the clock is loss, loss, loss, unless you   devote your heart to its opposition.<br \/>\n&#8211; Tennessee Williams<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2><strong>A Life is Lost in Seconds<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>There&#8217;s no denying all the time I devoted to writing helped me get better. I saw the time pay off&#8230;literally! Few things feel as good as paying bills or buying things with money you make from what you love doing most in life. But somewhere along the way, I realized many monosyllabic ticks of the clock were still lost.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There were all the parties I put off in order to write&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>There was the vacation time lost to a week of writing instead of&#8230;well, a week of vacation! (I&#8217;ve still never taken a week-long vacation as an adult.)<\/li>\n<li>There was weight gain because I spent more time writing than getting off my ass and moving&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>There were all the nights my poor wife went to bed alone because I was on a roll writing and couldn&#8217;t bring myself to stop&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I lost a lot in that mad dash of 20 years, but I told myself it was okay because once I made it, everything would be all right.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Everything Was <em>Not<\/em> All Right<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Something happened in my late 30s: I became <em>very <\/em>depressed.<\/p>\n<p>Depression was nothing new to me &#8212; it&#8217;s something I knew from an early age. (If you skipped yesterday&#8217;s entry, you <a title=\"The Luckiest Man Alive.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2012\/01\/14\/the-luckiest-man-alive\/\">missed a link about that<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>I had battled through the depression that was always there. I had battled through the depression that comes with losing a father at 22 and a big sister at 33. I had battled through the depression that came with a brain tumor large enough to begin blinding me in my early 30s. (A massive <a title=\"Pituitary Network Association.\" href=\"http:\/\/pituitary.org\">pituitary tumor<\/a> can blind you by pressing on the optic nerve and <em>really <\/em>change who you are). But even <em>that <\/em>wasn&#8217;t like the depression that came as the clock ticked down to 40.<\/p>\n<p>The stupid deadline I gave myself at 20 was fast approaching. Writing became an act of desperation &#8212; a do or die thing!<\/p>\n<p>Would I have time to complete the novel I&#8217;d spent 20 years preparing to write, or would I end it all before finishing? I&#8217;d written other novels in that time, but I put off the more serious stories, knowing that it takes a greater effort to pull together something bigger than a <a title=\"Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.helltrip.com\">Point A to Point B novel, like my first<\/a>. And that first truly challenging novel was finally coming together in my late 30s, but my rush to finish before turning 40 got in the way.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>My 40th Birthday<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I almost didn&#8217;t take the time off when I turned 40 to knock around Texas. My wife asked what I wanted, and I&#8217;d come to the conclusion that suicide at the moment of 40 was the kind of thing a stupid punk kid talks about &#8212; not something I was still focused on doing. So&#8230;I just wanted to see some old friends and get away for a handful of days.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m glad I stopped feeling sorry for myself and took the trip.<\/p>\n<p>My wife and I went to Austin, where we saw an old friend. Then it was to San Antonio <a title=\"Natural Bridge Caverns.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.naturalbridgecaverns.com\/\">where we wandered a cave<\/a>. It was hot and sunny when we went in, but a lot different outside when we came out. As the guide pointed to a fault line in the cave&#8217;s ceiling, the cave RUMBLED! People were terrified. I don&#8217;t know a lot about earthquakes, but being in a cave when one hits doesn&#8217;t seem like the place to be, stalactites and all.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t an earthquake, though; it was thunder. In the time we were under ground, a huge storm rolled in; one of the bigger storms I&#8217;ve seen in my years in Texas. Leaving the cave, we were greeted by a rush of cold air and driving rain. As others stayed behind waiting for the storm to break, my wife and I took off, running for the car. We laughed the whole way, drenching be damned! And that&#8217;s when it really hit me: I&#8217;d lost so many seconds like that in my life in my race to make it writing.<\/p>\n<p>Read that again &#8217;cause it&#8217;s some important stuff:<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>I&#8217;d lost so many seconds like that in my life in my race to make it writing.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After the cave, we had lunch with an <a title=\"John Picacio's website. Go there now!\" href=\"http:\/\/www.johnpicacio.com\">old friend<\/a> in a<a title=\"The Liberty Bar, San Antonio.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.liberty-bar.com\/\"> great place in San Antonio<\/a> that&#8217;s since moved from the cool, crooked building it once inhabited to another location. (I can only assume the food and drinks are just as good, so if you&#8217;re ever down there, check it out!)<\/p>\n<p>Then we went back to Austin, for a night all to ourselves. And the next day, May 25 &#8212; the day before my birthday &#8212; we went to <a title=\"Enchanted Rock State Park.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tpwd.state.tx.us\/spdest\/findadest\/parks\/enchanted_rock\/\">Enchanted Rock<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>On the Rock<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I won&#8217;t bore you with all the little details of the trip and force you to view vacation photos of one of the coolest and creepiest places where I&#8217;ve ever camped. This is the part that matters:<\/p>\n<p>On the night of my 40th birthday, my wife and I slept in a tent at the base of Little Rock (the <em>smaller <\/em>granite structure next to Enchanted Rock &#8212; the BIG granite structure). Well, I didn&#8217;t sleep&#8230;at all. At 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning, the plan was to go to the top of Enchanted Rock, where I&#8217;d turn 40 at precisely 6:21 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>That was the plan, anyway&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>All night long, we were surrounded by storms. Nothing more than a sprinkle or two hit us, but still&#8230;things weren&#8217;t looking good. As we climbed Enchanted Rock in the dark, there was a horseshoe shape of storms all around us. With it, came a cool breeze. (Which was nice after being almost 100 degrees outside the day before.)<\/p>\n<p>The lightning was getting closer, but the one place with no storms &#8212; only clouds &#8212; was to the east. We almost climbed back down, but the storms to the south crumbled, bringing even more cool &#8212; almost cold &#8212; outflow winds our way.<\/p>\n<p>With lightning to the south, west, and north the sun came up in the east.<\/p>\n<p>And this is what it looked like at 6:22 a.m., after kissing my wife at the moment I turned 40 on Enchanted Rock:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"A moment or two after turning 40 on Enchanted Rock.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/images\/40ontherock.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"338\" \/><\/p>\n<p>How the hell could I even <em>think <\/em>of the stupid plan I came up with at 20 and killing myself because I hadn&#8217;t yet made it writing when I&#8217;d experienced a perfect moment like that?!<\/p>\n<p>[Tomorrow: the Conclusion.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[If you missed part 1 of this yesterday, read that before reading this. This is part 2 of a 3-part series.] * * * If you decided to not read yesterday&#8217;s entry, here are the important parts: When I was 20, I gave myself 20 years to make it as a writer. If I didn&#8217;t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[24,59],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4109"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4109"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4133,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4109\/revisions\/4133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}