Date and Time

You know, it's funny. When I was in High School, one of my favorite teachers threw out a funny little anecdote. He said that when the Indians met with the first European colonists, they were amazed. Not just at the sickly white people who desperately needed food and exercise after months on a boat, but also at the colonists' fascination with time.

They marveled at the white folks' obsession with the Almighty Pocketwatch. The weird-ass pasty people were downright obsessive, centering everything they did every day around a weird mechanical paperweight.

Now, I'm pretty skeptical of this. For one thing, it sounds just like the kind of story hippies would pass around their drum circle, justifying why they slept through their morning classes. "Pfft, clock-worship is so insipid and arbitrary and *insert pseudointellectual big word here*. I bet the Prof doesn't even make time to smoke weed and look at the stars! Lame, bro. Lame."

But if it's true--and really, even if it isn't--it's kind of an interesting point. Why do dates, times, and calendars mean so much to us?

I could point out the obvious--that strict scheduling improves productivity--but that totally nullifies the whole point of this blog post, doesn't it?

What is the point of this blog post, I hear you ask? This whole thing is just a long-winded excuse why Emergence, my first novel, doesn't have a planned release date yet.

Pfft. Clock-worship is insipid and arbitrary anyways.

Well, Hot Damn

Introductions seem like a good place to begin.

Well, I'm Dusty. It's nice to meet you.

I'm going to be complaining about a lot in this blog. Let me give you a neat little bulletin list:

• The insanity of the political Right.
• Reasons #1-10,000 why I haven't written anything today.
• The stupidity of the political Left.
• America's celebration of all that asinine.
• How much I truly enjoy bulletin lists.

All that and more! Absolutely. It is entirely impossible that I will fail to be interesting.*

I'm a writer! I write things. And I've got to say, writing a book is a lot like how I imagine raising a child would be. Near the end, you're nearly as eye-droppingly, face-palmingly embarrassed as you are inanely, overbearingly proud.

Sending your novel to the publisher, to carry on with the metaphor, is a bit like helping your child apply to various colleges. Pride, hope, fear, and not a little bit of dread. Because while you desperately hope your baby succeeds in the real world, a small, selfish part of you wants to keep it all to yourself, to keep in your basement playing video games and eating your food.

But I digress.

Welcome to my blog! I can't guarantee much, but I will promise you this: metaphors that go on long after they cease to be useful, gratuitous language, and, of course, increasingly creative reasons why I haven't updated my blog.

Welcome to the party.

*It is very possible that I might fail to be interesting. But I snuck in an asterisk and fine print, so I can say I didn't lie with a straight face! Dusty, you are a genius.