This thunderstorm occurred in mid July, just after I had started actually writing (not organizing, not outlining, not pitching) the book. I remember I had been sitting at the desk for almost three hours with a blank Word document in front of me. The flashing cursor was like an SOS signal. I was completely empty.
This spirited thunderstorm started farting and belching outside, and I went into the sun room beside our home office to watch lightning bolts flash into the park in the distance. I shot some shaky video with my Canon Elph, and then this hippie dude and his girlfriend went splashing by on their bikes in water that was at almost two feet deep.
I’d like to say the absurdness of the whole thing sent a lightning bolt of inspiration blazing into my ear, but the truth is I went back to the computer, fired up NetNewsWire, and threw in the towel.
Writing was like that for weeks until I got into the groove. There would be long days of sitting at the computer, cursing my quaggy brain and feeling absolutely moronic, and then one or two days of nearly manic productivity, where at least half of the stuff I wrote was utter shit. But at least I was writing.
The funny thing is even though that book has been cancelled, I’m throwing myself back into the fracas and starting work on another one. I can’t decide if this could be seen as the irrepressible passion of a man who has “something to say”, or just the final bit of drool out of the mouth of an absolute con.
This video proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that my iMovie editing skills absolutely suck. In my defense, this is only the second time I’ve tried playing around with iMovie. There’s only so much room in my brain, and every time I learn something new, something old has to get tossed to make room. Sigh.
(Note: if you’re reading this in your newsreader, you’ll have to visit the site to view the video. I’m using a Javascript method to embed the Quicktime so that it doesn’t break validation.)
