I is a writer so I writes

Resumed work on the Glog manuscript Monday. No phone calls. No visitors. One of the most solid days of work I’ve been able to put in for ages. Heavenly!

Over the weekend I printed a hard copy and I’ve been working from that instead of the computer screen. It really makes a difference. I thought the manuscript was in good shape; I did not realize how many needed corrections would show up in print.

For instance, being a lazy typist, I tend to use two hyphens instead of an em-dash, very unprofessional. I also found comas where periods should be and vice versa. For some reason I always type the word form when I mean from. I think in spurts so I needed to combine many spurts into whole paragraphs.

Lots of nits to pick but they add up.

This is all delicate work, like adding a chimney to a house of cards.

I have been working on Glog off and on for years and years. I do think it is the best thing I’ve ever written, yet it is so off beat — a dinosaur who prays for divine guidance — that I doubt that any one will buy the book. So I wonder why I’m so obsessed with getting every T crossed and every I dotted.

Who cares?

I do.

This is the one piece of writing that speaks my heart. Over the years,I’ve had to interrupt work on the Glog manuscript again and again in order to write piles of business articles for newspapers and magazines just in order to make a living. Selling those pieces kept my family alive but quenched my spirit. Whereas in Glog I express my worldview and joy in life; I relish and rejoice in it.

Besides that, I really do want to give readers their money’s worth when they buy one of my books, so I fuss inordinately over the quality of the finished product and I feel so damn inferior because of my lack of computer skills and writing skills, and grammar skills and general spiritual blah-ness… But I keep on going like that damn rabbit on tv.

I is a writer so I writes.

Last night Ginny & I attended a neighborhood watch meeting where a police officer lectured about Florida’s new Deadly Force law. Beginning in October it will be legal to shoot anyone who threatens you anywhere.

Now, you can only shoot them if they threaten you inside your own home; then, you can blow them away anywhere.

Return to Dodge City.

The cop said citizens are better off running than shooting. He emphasized the civil suit implications of shooting a bad guy because his family may then sue you for 80% of your income for the rest of your life.

But, I’m reminded of an old adage:

Better to be tried by twelve men than carried by six.