A Slight Change in Plans and an Important Update

So, I’ve gone and done something quite unexpected.  Rash, even.  I’ve… well.  I should build the suspense, eh?

When I make an important decision, I usually always follow a similar pattern.

1.  Agony

This ones pretty simple.  Say I want to buy something that costs quite a bit of money (a tv).  I know I want one, but how badly?  What are my other options for spending the cash?  Is the trade-off worth it?  I agonize over ever trivial thing in my decision making process, weeding through my options to find the best choice for me.

2.  Logical Thinking

As an engineer, I’m kind of a nerdy person.  I like logic.  I like things to make sense.  Likewise, I like my decisions to make sense, to fall into the rational thinking category, not the spur-of-the-moment kind of thing.  I think about my options, carefully narrow them down to their results, and try to figure out how my life would play out if I followed one path over another.

3.  More Agonizing

Did I mention I’m pretty good at this internal debating thing?  When I decided to buy me an HD tv, I committed to buying one.  Then, after nearly two months of research, price hunting, and internal agony, I finally purchased the thing.  See, two months after a decision is made I act.  I’m just a patient person.

4.  Choose

Usually I choose my actions by the weighing of several things, but sometimes, after days/weeks/months/hours of internal debate, I finally just give up and just go with something.  Ultimately I hope my choice is for the better, but it’s not always so.

These past two weeks or so I’ve been doing some logical thinking about something.  On one hand, it’s not really anything important or life-changing, but on the other, it’s something I’ve somewhat dreamed of. 

With encouragement from Keisha and self-satisfaction, I’ve submitted a short-story to an online magazine.  I don’t really expect it to get picked up, but just actually committing and doing it is taking a huge step for me.  (Granted, an even bigger step would be if it were a novel to a publisher or something, but that’s a different story.  Think small, Logan.)  Sadly, for any of you that were interested, that story is “The Bombing of Morrta,” which I now cannot post on my blog until I hear back from the magazine, which could take up to 70 days.  This means no posting of the new Writing Wednesdays that I planned.

However, if any of you would like to read this story, I’d be more than happy to send you a copy of the thing for your pleasure.  It’s almost 9200 words, so really not that long.  It definitely needs more editing, but I did what my little eyes could do in two go-throughs.  And if any of you were feeling exceptionally foolish and perky, you could even add some editing notes yourselves and send ‘em back to me.  Also, I still plan on recording an mp3 version for you Mattson, just cause, well, I enjoyed it last time and I wanna do it again.  If anybody else would like the mp3, let me know that, too.

So, like I said, I’m not really expecting the story to get accepted, but I’m insanely proud of it for some reason.  Maybe it’s because I’ve actually finished something in my writing.  Yes, there are mistakes aplenty, I’m sure, but I’m taking baby steps here.  You can get in touch with me through email (see the contact page at the top) or in the comments below.  Facebook friends can message or comment likewise.  And many thanks to each and every one of you, especially the one that mailed me the carrot cake this past weekend.  Mmmmm.  Tasty!