a path to many selfs

For pretty much the last time, I finished my book today.

This was the third draft, and I'm calling it the final draft.  I anticipate I'll be announcing the official (self-)publication  soon.  Then I'll be ready to do it all over again.

It's been a fun ride.  My writing process is pretty free-form, in that I just write whatever the heck I feel like.  When I'm feeling inspired, the results can be excellent.  But if I stop feeling inspired partway through...well, the results tend to be unfinished.  This book represents the greatest sustained outpouring of creative effort that I've ever accomplished, and I'm extremely pleased with that, no matter the reception.

Often when I start writing a blog post, I identify a central theme or idea, but usually it's something I want to work towards in the post.  I start somewhere a little smaller, and try to build it up to the really fun concept.  Half the time, I never even get there; I either lost interest or get distracted by something I find even more fascinating.  Theoretically, you get to reap the benefits of that.

But when I'm writing a book, I can't just do whatever I want.  My decisions need to fit within the structure and context of the overall story, which is frustratingly limiting.  Last year, I wasted entire days trying to force myself to focus on the book's plot, rather than whatever happened to be interesting me at the moment.  And I find so many different things interesting..my attention span is pretty long, but writing a book is much, much longer.

I'm reaching a point in my life where I can see having children as something closer than "eventually."  It's real, and really approaching, and I feel like I'm frantically running around trying to cram in all the fun stuff I'm sure I won't have time for once I'm fully responsible for another human being.  I can tell, on some level, this is a futile effort; I'll never be able to satisfy all of my interests, and most of these things probably won't even interest me that much once I have a kid.  But on another level, I know that the tremendous changes in my life that a child will effect will alter who I am, deeply.  I won't be a different person, but so many of the things that matter to me now will stop mattering.  In a sense, I think I'm struggling to prove that my life has meaning now.  I'm building a case about purpose to be delivered to a future self, when I try to think back and justify the actions I take on a daily basis right now.

Was I just wasting my time?  I will come back and read this post, and decide then whether my frantic cries for meaning meant anything.  But I sincerely hope that I never come to think of this struggle as anything but desperately important; if I do, that means something I currently regard as fundamental to who I am will be gone, and who will I be then?

It's like a bread crumb trail leading back to my identity.  I just have to hope that nobody eats it, and that I'll always have a taste for bread.  That's all you can do.