Weekend Rain

It was raining very hard on Saturday but the climate cleared up on Sunday. I had planned to go to the nearby flea market but no one wanted to go. So I stayed home in the weekend although I drove my son to school on Saturday morning and to his football game in the afternoon. But the rains came down hard and the game had to stop. We went back home, and later went to church at 5:30pm. Afterwards we went to the gym and had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant on the way back home. I did not like the food much because it seemed to be made from those Asian easy-mix packages one can buy in the supermarket. We ordered Thai Red Curry Chicken, Penang Curry Chicken, Poh noodles with beef and meat balls. For appetizers, we ordered spring rolls and dumplings.


I think I need to plan these night outs every month to break the routine. My kids spend too much time in their rooms except when going to school or foot ball practice. I try to make sure they go to the gym every week so they can exercise and get out of their rooms. I still need to plan more activities to widen their social activities. This weekend I spent most of the time reading the books I borrowed and the watching the DVDs I borrowed. On Saturday morning, I went to the library close by and borrowed more movies. I think I borrow too much and have no time for researching the stocks I want to buy or start working on my novel.


I also took care of payments to my credit card account and realized that I need to fund most of my expenses from my salary. I still have some money and I think I will use a minor portion to fund some travels to California and Washington, DC. I think these trips will be good for my kids to hasten their acclimatization here. Strange that I always wanted to travel around, but now that I have the opportunity to do so, I seemed to have lacked the urge. I have more urges to start writing as if the cloud in my mind has been lifted so I can focus on the novel. I guess it is the zeitgeist here as well where every effort needs to have a productive outcome. Being idle is not something that is practiced here as everyone seems to be on the move.


I have installed the Nick Daws writing course and I plan to start going through the studies in the coming weeks. I think the seriousness of the writing craft is getting to me know and it’s only now that I appreciate all those books I have borrowed about the writing craft. I have audio copies of Ayn Rand’s ‘The Art of Writing’ and Stephen King’s writing memoirs. I understood these works on an intellectual level but I still need to practice them and understand the actual writing process. I think my main problem is my lack of confidence being my own worst inner critic and once I throw these restrictions away I will do well. In the back of my mind, I think that the writing process is not a difficult job after all considering all the things that I now know.

I think the most important effort is to control one’s mind into having a minimum structure or method to write. Once the mind is disciplined will it be able to move forward. I think I am starting to understand the type of discipline that is needed with my experience, readings and reflections. I think finally I have read the minimum required number of books and traveled the minimum number of countries plus having the appropriate minimum experience to have the confidence to write. I know there is still a lot of things to learn but I guess I have the appropriate equipment to start writing a novel. There will be many more years before one can become a good writer but at least I have the experience enough to start a first novel. I think the self-publishing website in the Internet has matured enough to provide a good spring board for a first novel.