C.: Hi, d.c., what are you doing?
d.: I’m just watching this video of the Phillie fan heckling Mattress Mac.
C.: I saw that. He could have handled it better, but most of us would have done the same thing under similar circumstances, I’m afraid. At least, those of us in mine, your and Mac’s generation. My kittens, though, would have handled it differently.
d.: How so?
C.: Well, Ralph is really good at making people like that Philly fan look silly. He would have said, “That is SO five years ago…”
d.: When you were rooting for a last-place team.
C.: When there were twenty-one different players on the Astros’ World Championship team.
C.: When the economy was good
d.: And the stock market was bullish
C.: When there wasn’t a war raging in the Eastern Hemisphere, using up valuable resources
d.: When you were probably on a bender..
C.: That hasn’t ended yet!
d.: When I hadn’t had double-digit surgeries…
C.: And I wasn’t addicted to catnip
d.: Those are good points, Cal.E. The world and its circumstances change on a daily, and sometimes hourly basis. Some people aren’t able to let go of the past, especially when things aren’t going well in the present for them. I know that I’ve been guilty of looking back, instead of looking forward. Life is a slippery slope. If one stands still, s/he will regress and go backward. Which reminds me, I need to get to work.
C.: On what, d.c.? d.: I’ve been stuck on the next chapter of my fourth book in the “Magruder Mysteries” series, but the next chapter came to me today. Usually, when I get unstuck, the rest of the book begins to flow.
C.: Is that the book that you sent me a chapter from last week?
d.: It is. I got that chapter out, but couldn’t go any further. Now, I think I’m going to go in a different direction than the direction I started.
C.: Didn’t you already write the ending to that book, d.c.?
d.: I have. That’s the way I usually write. It makes it easier to get started, when I know where the book will end. But the outline I wrote doesn’t fit the direction I’m going in now. The book will still end the same, but some of the “middle chapters” I wrote may end up in a different book, or be deleted altogether.
C.: Doesn't it frustrate you to delete some of your hard work, d.c.?
d.: Not always. I enjoy the journey as much as anything. If the journey of writing the book leads me in a different direction, then so be it. That’s why I keep a file labeled “cuts.” It’s a file of chapters that didn’t fit in the book I’m writing, but I may be able to use later. That way, I never feel that I’m wasting my time when I write.
C.: Well, that’s all the time we have for today, folks. Please join us tomorrow for another episode of Cal.E.’s Corner.
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