As promised (in a manner of speaking) on Facebook in response to a Facebook Friend's post on the subject, I now post some reflections about an impending date which some have come to believe will live in infamy for the human race. Even as others flock to strange and various locations around the globe to ride out the terror they fully believe is approaching within the next day, or wait for the extraterrestrial spaceship that will take them away from all that, I sit in my rental house with far more mundane concerns flooding my thoughts.
I don't believe in what I consider to be pagan prophecies regarding the end of some human age (or the end of all life and history in the world as we know it, some would claim). I will not be moved to live my tomorrow any differently just because some ancient calendar ends on December 21, 2012. You might now be thinking I'm the sort that seeing the tidal wave approaching I'd walk out with arms spread at my sides to await oblivion - okay, maybe I would. But right now I have more debts and future obligations to somehow overcome than I know how. Only two days ago I decided to restart my fiction writing career by going after a job listing at Craigslist for someone to ghostwrite a 300-350-page adventure novel posted by someone from Northern Virginia. So far my query listing relevant credentials and qualifications has received no response. This could take a few days to find out anything even in the age of near-instant communication. I could be rejected as unsuitable merely because I lack a required Skype phone connection for video conferencing (which doesn't seem fair to me), or because someone else beat me to getting this gig (which pays $3,000 - 3,500 at a rate of $10 per page with each finished chapter) which was posted back on November 28. With the frustration of being unable to secure any new mundane job, after having lost my last one due to surgical recovery that took more than 30 days, I decided to seek out some professional writing job within my capabilities. I have written novels ranging from under 200 pages to one (my first) that in double-spaced pages came to 606. I can type 3-4 pages per hour at a clip (39 words per minute I was once rated in a typing test - probably too slow for any professional typing-related career) and on a good day can churn out 24-30 pages of fiction. I have written books that took 26 days (last year for the National Novel Writing Month contest) or 10 months (my first novel - I've gotten faster in whipping out rough drafts since 2000). Four years ago I lacked the confidence to attempt any ghostwriting job. Now I believe I could do the work (but would still like to see the 100-bullet point outline this job mentioned before signing any contract).
I've often been highly negative about my past failings and autism-like Asperger's Syndrome difficulties, sometimes personally attacking others - even the dead - and usually only getting feedback here when I was particular nasty in my words. Now, I'm trying to find some way to make a living - if as a ghostwriter than so much the better, because I've realized how much I enjoy writing itself. I only wish I was a top notch illustrative artist, crackerjack editor and wonderfully inventive pitchman for my work. Unfortunately I am none of those three things and as a result my writing career as a novelist has suffered in obscurity. I hope that may yet change if I come into contact with talented individuls in those areas - cover artwork, editorial oversight and book sales promotion - and can be finally recognized as a yet-unsung writing talent. Only time will tell.
But in the meantime, unless some localized natural disaster or similar calamity gains the headlines on Friday, I expect, just as Great Britain's King George III allegedly wrote in his royal diary for July 4, 1776 (although some historians dispute the accuracy of this claim), that tomorrow will be summed up with the same five words the 18th-19th Century monarch penned on the same day some Americans in Philadelphia signed a particular declaration:
"Nothing of importance happened today."
I don't believe in what I consider to be pagan prophecies regarding the end of some human age (or the end of all life and history in the world as we know it, some would claim). I will not be moved to live my tomorrow any differently just because some ancient calendar ends on December 21, 2012. You might now be thinking I'm the sort that seeing the tidal wave approaching I'd walk out with arms spread at my sides to await oblivion - okay, maybe I would. But right now I have more debts and future obligations to somehow overcome than I know how. Only two days ago I decided to restart my fiction writing career by going after a job listing at Craigslist for someone to ghostwrite a 300-350-page adventure novel posted by someone from Northern Virginia. So far my query listing relevant credentials and qualifications has received no response. This could take a few days to find out anything even in the age of near-instant communication. I could be rejected as unsuitable merely because I lack a required Skype phone connection for video conferencing (which doesn't seem fair to me), or because someone else beat me to getting this gig (which pays $3,000 - 3,500 at a rate of $10 per page with each finished chapter) which was posted back on November 28. With the frustration of being unable to secure any new mundane job, after having lost my last one due to surgical recovery that took more than 30 days, I decided to seek out some professional writing job within my capabilities. I have written novels ranging from under 200 pages to one (my first) that in double-spaced pages came to 606. I can type 3-4 pages per hour at a clip (39 words per minute I was once rated in a typing test - probably too slow for any professional typing-related career) and on a good day can churn out 24-30 pages of fiction. I have written books that took 26 days (last year for the National Novel Writing Month contest) or 10 months (my first novel - I've gotten faster in whipping out rough drafts since 2000). Four years ago I lacked the confidence to attempt any ghostwriting job. Now I believe I could do the work (but would still like to see the 100-bullet point outline this job mentioned before signing any contract).
I've often been highly negative about my past failings and autism-like Asperger's Syndrome difficulties, sometimes personally attacking others - even the dead - and usually only getting feedback here when I was particular nasty in my words. Now, I'm trying to find some way to make a living - if as a ghostwriter than so much the better, because I've realized how much I enjoy writing itself. I only wish I was a top notch illustrative artist, crackerjack editor and wonderfully inventive pitchman for my work. Unfortunately I am none of those three things and as a result my writing career as a novelist has suffered in obscurity. I hope that may yet change if I come into contact with talented individuls in those areas - cover artwork, editorial oversight and book sales promotion - and can be finally recognized as a yet-unsung writing talent. Only time will tell.
But in the meantime, unless some localized natural disaster or similar calamity gains the headlines on Friday, I expect, just as Great Britain's King George III allegedly wrote in his royal diary for July 4, 1776 (although some historians dispute the accuracy of this claim), that tomorrow will be summed up with the same five words the 18th-19th Century monarch penned on the same day some Americans in Philadelphia signed a particular declaration:
"Nothing of importance happened today."