(#25) October 26 2014

PERSONAL NEWS

SOMETIMES THE BEAR GETS YOU— SOMETIMES YOU GET THE BEAR—SOMETIMES YOU RUN LATE REGARDLESS OF WHO IS CHASING WHO

It’s a great feeling to work really well—which was certainly not the case when I was recovering from my mid April injury. I was out of pain by mid August, but—though I was functional—not really firing on all cylinders until about four or five weeks ago. Since then I have been at it for 16 hours a day plus—and feel wonderful.

Or else my concussion was more severe than I thought.

Will I keep on working this crazy schedule? No. I look forward to a somewhat more balanced existence, but right now I’m struggling to make up for lost time.

That’s not so easy. Writing is time-consuming enough in itself—I do research on top of that—and then being entrepreneurial is notoriously time-consuming largely because you are breaking new ground and doing things for the first time. And I would add, because there is always a great deal to learn. True, I have been involved in a number of start-ups before, but this is my first one in the U.S., and my first publishing venture. It’s really a damn fool thing to do at my age—but it’s a great adventure. Incredibly hard work though.

The good news is that —after endless delays and much frustration—things are beginning to work. On the face of it, an observer might—quite reasonably—hold a contrary opinion (I’m dealing with all sorts of problems) but I have the sense that it it is darkest before the dawn.

Work perfectly? I should be so lucky!

Better.

My next big task is to master the phone. I grew up in an era where you turned a handle to wake up an operator to make a call. She then plugged in things to make a connection and—if nothing else was on—had a good listen. The Surveillance State was in existence long before the NSA.

I regard phones with mixed feelings. There are few more effective ways of breaking a writer’s focus than with a phone call. On the other hand, once I get into the spirit of the thing, I rather like chatting on the phone—especially now that costs have come down. There was a time when a phone call had to be regarded as an investment decision.

But, today you don’t talk on a phone. You do everything but…

More on phones later.

Meanwhile, my apologies to those who feel neglected.

415 words

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