Being gainfully-- if not fully-- employed can surely wear on one.

I'm still in a transitional period of getting used to things, and learning the ropes of all the new jobs, but the worrisome thing is that I now cannot seem to sit quietly long enough to watch a televisionne programme or read a book or WRITE or in fact care about anything, without dozing off.

The danger of having jobs you don't hate is that you think this is somehow okay. Righteous, even. You don't feel compelled to quit, or rebel, you just quietly sign your life over and get all irritated at people who suggest you should spend any of your free time doing anything but nap and watch West Wing. After all, I BAKE BREAD NOW! I don't owe the world a thing.

No, damn it.

So I'm having a nice writer's retreat weekend at the moment, and am generally trying to get used to things and make sure I get the most sleep I can. Including naps. Sometimes you just can't avoid it. Sometimes they help.

I'd also like to say that as I mentioned on my other blog I've been using an excellent program known as Write Or Die and while for a long time I thought there was no use and I'd never ever have another story to tell, I have found one after all. Whatever its merits, at least it's keeping me busy writing and it's the extended narrative I'd been longing to see if I could still produce. And all the time I spent with Write Or Die just forcing myself to put words down has actually been fabulous endurance practice.

So, just further reassurance and emphasis, even when you're writing crap I'm pretty sure it's getting you somewhere, even if it doesn't seem that way.

The thing about advice, I suppose, is that when it comes from people who are, like, successful in some way, you never know whether any of it had anything to do with all their immensely clever strategy or whether they just got lucky and no matter what you do you'll never get the same break they did.

Nobody listens to failures, either; for the same reasons.