Real Life™ tends to get in the way.

The real downside to being an Aspiring Writer, as opposed to one who is published and actually gets paid to write, is that you have to do something else to pay the bills. Many Aspiring Writers have the wherewithal to work a job that requires only small doses of set hours during which their minds don't have to be fully engaged.

I, on the other hand, work in building Proofs of Concept. Which basically means I build things to demonstrate cool products and interactions between existing products which were never really intended or thought of. That sometimes takes a lot of time and a lot of effort, especially on the mental side of things, it's been that way lately, with a project ramping up to full speed and hurtling towards an ever-present series of deadlines. That's not very conducive to sitting my posterior in a chair and spending time writing.

Outside of work, I have a family. I like them more than I like work, they're why I work to pay the bills. They take time too. My eldest daughter plays Goal for an all girls rep hockey team, and is on the cusp of being a moody teenager.

My youngest daughter is in the formative years of toddler-hood, learning new words and ways of expressing ideas to other people every day, and she has the cutest temper tantrums if she doesn't get her beloved crackers.

My niece is at the wonderful age where she's starting high-school, dating, frequently changing hair colour, and has weird eating habits, I mean seriously, who in their right mind doesn't eat bacon! (I'm not exempting religious reasons).

And then I need to spare some time for the wonderful woman who puts up with me on a day to day basis.

Again, all this doesn't leave ample time for writing. Still, I managed to sneak in some time this evening. I only got about 1500 words down of actual story, and another 800 or so of outline details and slight changes, but it's something, and it felt good doing it too. I'd love to have a first incredibly rough draft done by November, Real Life™ may not make that possible.

I'm writing this on the edge of falling asleep in my desk chair, it was only the sheer volume of screwed up rewrites of a single sentence which clued me in that it was time to stop and go to bed.

I figured I'd write this first. Hopefully it'll make sense.

-Grimm