I hope this is a one-shot deal…

But today I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time figuring out things like TwitterFeed, Bit.ly, Tweeting in general, and fun stuffs like Acsii art and HTML specialties.

I resisted setting up a second Twitter or Facebook account for specific “networking” or “marketing” (barely trusting myself to keep up with the new elements I am trying to understand now).

We are currently on day 10 of 21 of our scripted eating, and I think the lack of variety, along with excessive focus on the details, is messing with my thinking processes. i.e., I think I’m even more obsessed than usual with the little things over general reality.

Also discovered #YAlitchat on ning, and signed up because one of the blogs I visited today said they have online critique groups– but I haven’t found them yet, and my patience for on-line time is just about frayed out, so I’ve accepted not figuring this out today.

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I started reading On Becoming a Novelist yesterday, and quickly decided I want my own copy.  He begins with an entirely different approach than most writing books I’ve read– that is, in attempting to answer the niggling question, “Am I really cut out for this?“

Well, instead of actually answering it, he paints a variety of portrait possibilities, and since I can see bits of myself in them, I feel affirmed and encouraged that my tendency is both natural and reasonable.

This is much easier to swallow than the idea that I am irreparably messed up, so I’m thankful to roll with it for now.

As for the novel: it is decidedly on hold until this special eating project is over.  I am at the stage where I need to think of the details in relation to the whole– and I am personally at the place where I will “strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.”

Which I’m beginning to fear I’ve done already.  But those 30,000 words really did need to be cut!