I've had a pretty good day today so far; knock on wood. My last two Mondays were bad, but today was relatively stress free. I even started to get the feeling that everything was going to be alright for a change, and that's a feeling I don't get very often anymore.

I'm trying to keep track of my writing progress, so I write more this year than I did last year. I was looking at the month of January and saw that two weeks have gone. I started panic thinking the year is already rushing by and I'm not getting any writng done, but then I realized I've been trying to write every day come hell or high water it seems and I do have something to show for it.

Chapter 10 of my Texas novel is complete. Chapter 11 is outlined and 1/3 finished. Chapter 12, 13 and 14 and half outlined. And I started a rewrite of Chapter 1 which I really, really like. Not bad for 16 days of writing time available.

I've not even started on my goal of doubling my writing output on the weekends. You'd think I'd have more time on the weekends to write and I do, but I'm not used to scheduling in double the time. Since the writing by hand thing seems to be working for me, I was thinking I could use the weekend time to get caught up on my typing.

I'm learning that as long as I keep telling myself it's easy for me to get my four pages done every day, I can do it. But the minute I think about how hard writing is for me and how I don't have the time to do it, I get stopped. I have to fool my mind into thinking that what I'm doing is easy and pain-free, never mind that it really isn't on some level, but as long as I tell myself it's easy I can do it. It's not the getting the words to come out that is hard, it's getting to the point where I can sit down and be relaxed enough to let them come where the difficulty comes in.

I can see why all the books tell you that you should write at the same time every day. That kind of structure forces you to relax after awhile because it's not like you'll be doing anything else and you get used to relaxing your mind and body at that particular time of the day.

What a frazzled day! I got up late and when I finally got in my car to head to a cafe and write, my car doesn't start. I call Triple A to get a tow truck to jump start my car, and the guy says my battery is dead. I didn't leave anything on, and my battery up and died. This was very strange because I had just gotten a reminder from the car dealership that it was time for my 40,000 mile battery vice. I didn't pay any attention to the notice because I only have about 33,000 miles on my car. But sure enough my battery dies.

After driving on 280 for about an hour, which is about the prettiest freeway in northern California, I ended up at Sears to have my batter tested and sure enough after the first test my battery died again. This confirmed what the tow car guy said so I had them change my battery. I've been thinking my tires needed to be changed and my car needed to be aligned and balanced, so I'm asking the mechanic guy about their tires and there's a sale.

We go out to check my tires and he said I had about 2,000 miles left on my front tires and that it wasn't a good sign that they were cracking. And I'm like I don't want to spend the money, but it's either now or later and with all the bad weather and rain it might as well be now.

So we're looking at the tire prices and I'm asking about just getting the same tires that were on the car before until I look at the price. Those tires were so expensive. The mechanic guy says he likes the next tire in price better because the handling is better. My other tires make less noise but they're not known for their handling. So I'm like okay, just make sure the tires are balanced and aligned.

Six hundred dollars and an hour and a half later I'm driving in my car and the new tires make such a difference in the drive. I was right about the alignment in the car, because the mechanics found that the car was off in alignment on the front like I thought. The new tires are so great. They handle the road much better, and the difference is so noticable.

But what a hectic and tense day. I hate it when I have car problems. I'm supposed to only get my oil changed every 5,000 miles, but I'm going to change it this weekend because I'm at 33,000 miles. The check oil light came on anyway, and I'm pretty sure my four hour drive back and forth to Redding ate up my oil, not to mention my two hour trip and back to Sacramento last month. Better to be safe than sorry with the oil changes I say.

I'm watching the Tsunami concert of hope on TV, and I'm getting flashbacks to 9/11 but the tsunami didn't affect me like 9/11 did. I was on vacation in Houston at my cousin's and the tsunami seemed truly like another world away even though I'd been in that part of the world.

That part of the world will never be the same ever. It will recover, but from the pictures it looks like the landscape has changed forever. I don't know why I'm not affected, because I know I should be. So many people have died, and a generation of people were wiped out. That's huge. I don't know. Maybe I'm in still in shock and one of these soon it will hit me.

The thing that's better about this TV concert is they decided to put the name of the people performing. They didn't do that for 9/11 and a friend of mine who's not plugged into all the new music, spent the whole night wondering who the heck all the performers were.

9/11 made me feel like life could wiped in a second, and I've never forgotten that feeling ever. I think this tsunami disaster did the same for the people who may have forgotten about 9/11. Life is short, and you've got to live like it's your last, but you've also got to make good choices because choices have consequences like anything else.

So I'm taking that class on "Getting Better Writing Habits" and I'm trying to write every day, and I'm like "OH MY GOD, this is so hard!" I had to force myself to write yesterday.

I went home early to have the appliance guy take a look at my heater, because my apartment wasn't heating up fast enough. But he found nothing and suggested I put my blinds down at night to trap the heat. I usually leave my blinds up for the view but if it keeps the apartment warm, then I'm going to start closing them.

After he left, I was so unmotivated to do anything. I had to force myself to sit down and write. Since I had a bunch of pages to type up, I typed pages instead of writing and mananged to transcribe and edit 6 pages.

I'm starting to think I don't have what it takes to be a writer. I'm not motivated enough, not disciplined enough, not whatever enough. I have stories I want to tell and maybe I need to start thinking about writing them just to write, and not think about publishing or getting a screenplay produced. I just don't know if I have the perseverance that's needed to write professionally for a living. I write a ton in my job already, so I have a job where I write maybe 40% of the time. It's business writing, but at least it's still writing.

I don't know. I'm confused. I'm thinking maybe I want to go back to thinking more about my career than my writing. Maybe writing should just be a hobby and not a serious pursuit. I don't know. I gave up acting because I wasn't that motivated to be on stage like all my other acting friends. Writing has held my interest more than acting and it is getting easier, and I could still do it for myself without having to think about pursuing it as a career.

Writing is so much like acting; everyone wants to do it which means very few people ever succeed. I don't know. I guess I'm getting discouraged when I think of the long term prospects of my writing career. I probably have more of a chance being a director at some corporation than I do at being a well-paid writer. It's a thought isn't it? I passed up two jobs that probably would have led to management positions, one of which placed me at number two in line to the top behind the IT manager and that was six years ago. The IT manager is now a director, and he told recently that if I stayed I would have been a director as well. Don't you just hate when people tell you these things? The people from my other job told me the same thing as well, since they're both directors now. Not that this kind of career growth might have happened to me, but it makes me wonder you know.

I write because I feel like it feels like it's "purpose" in my life, and I feel good that I know what my purpose is because there are a ton of people out there still searching for theirs. But sometimes I feel like a writer who dreams of being a corporate VP instead of a corporate drone who dreams of being a writer. Silly isn't it? And I know if I didn't feel that writing was why I was put on this earth, I know I'd seriously go back to climbing the corporate ladder.