Multiple Creativity Disorder

I watched one of my coworkers get pissed about one of our deaf customers because the deaf person “was an impatient SOB.”

Funny thing is, is that I had the same person in the same mood the night before and I was calm and laughed at her.

Low and behold the same person just got the customer again and she and the same frustrated attitude.

I think so much of life is choosing your attitude. Just like I choose not to get pissed with bitchy callers, I can choose to have a good day. Even if that doesn’t quite work, I can still chose to have a “fucked up” day in a positive way.

I’ve been spending most of my free time on writing a computer program. (specifically a way to manage Spam), Watching TV (My TiVo’s been getting way ahead of me), Reading (unfortunately I’ven’t found good books. I’ve recently started and putting down two books for lack of good writing/interest), and crocheting.

We’ve been undergoing something of a crocheting fetish at work. Why? I don’t know.

Its sort of amazing but all crocheting is, is a bunch of loops of yawn looped inside of each other. This means you can undo it all by pulling on the unfinished one and it just keeps unraveling, pretty neat!

its the recursive function of sewing, it just keeps reusing and reusing the same method over and over again creating something larger. Ironically enough I wrote my first recursive function, specifically one that converts numbers to other bases.

Amazingly the crocheting is satisfying as well as the programming and writing. There are concrete visible products out of all of them. (Even if programming is just arranging bits in the right order.)

so far the programming has been easy. Maybe its because I’m being a little slower and more methodical. In someways its amazing to me any of this commercial software is workable with the stories I find at software companies with their 100 hour work weeks, all night programming sessions fueled by Mountain Dew and Pizza. I don’t see how anyone can write accurate logical rules under those conditions. (thats all software is, a series of logical rules.)

I used to attempt it, but I’d end up having to go to bed because I got so frustrated and couldn’t get it working properly. Invariably I’d end up having to go to bed, waking up and finding some stupid bug that I’d typoed in.

Another thing thats better about the programming is that I’ve really broken it down and made it modular and worked each piece down. Its strange but I’ve matured as a programmer. I’m no longer the slap dash throw it together kind of programmer I was. I think i’ve gotten better results out of it.

I’ven’t seen the same out of my writing. Well maybe, I have one project that is in the “philosophical stage.” I’m spending time exploring the issues behind it and what I want to say.

The thing I still don’t know is how to be true to my characters. I worry that they’re not true enough. I want to give them each a life of their own, but I’m too scared to try. I’ve given them my writer desired traits, actions and lines. They feel like puppets to me and not people. I think I need to worry about setting them free of me and see what they do. I need to act their life out to explore through it.

— God, writing can be so much work sometimes.