by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
As I approach my 50th birthday, it is really beginning to sink in how brief life really is. I go visit my elderly father in a nursing home just about every day and every time I go it really sinks in that quality of life is crucial. You can be alive, but not really living.
So, I’m feeling a severe case of existential dread about where things stand at this point. The only way I’m going to finish my first novel is to force myself to have some sort of structure going forward. I can’t just continue to drift towards my goal as I have for years now. I have to force myself to write a lot, read a lot , use my new Netflix account a lot and generally put my big boy pants on.
I’m very grateful for the unique situation I’ve been in since I started working on this projected six novel project. I am well aware that it just can’t last — all good things come to an end and all that. In fact, the curious thing about this idyllic situation is it may not end with something really bad happening to me so much as something changes (a specific bad event I have in mind that I hope doesn’t happen anytime soon) that causes me to have the funds to be distracted again by things like maybe visiting Asia.
At the moment, I am so fucking poor that I really have no excuse not to focus on reading, writing and watching thought provoking content on Netflix. I have been very, very bad about using my precious days on this planet to the fullest. Turning 50 very much snuck up on me. It’s very deep because I look at my father’s lot in life and realize that if I don’t get something done soon I’ll just be another washed up hasbeen with a lot of dreams that never came to fruition because I didn’t really do anything with my life.
So. I am going to really try to push myself to go outside my rut, my confort zone and really focus on what needs to be done to get this first novel done as soon as possible.
While it’s turning out to be really, really good I continue to feel rather sheepish that I’m so far along in the process and still discovering existential problems with the structure of the story. A lot — may all — of this comes from how I’m developing this novel in a near total creative vacuum.
I have no friends and no one likes me.
So, things are a lot more of a struggle than they might otherwise be. But the obstacles aren’t insurmountable.
