My serious and copious amounts of writer's block has given me much time to think about things unrelated to writing.  I went into this endeavor with lofty ideas of writing The Next Great Novel and of raking in loads of cash so that I may not have to work for someone else, and just live the rest of my life learning and writing.  To be clear, I did not strive to be rich, I just wanted to make enough money so that I could write full-time and learn full-time. Time is the best teacher and I realize that while my goal is certainly not out of reach, it is going to take more gusto than hoped for the end result to be plausible.  I know that I write well, it's just that I only write well when I have inspiration to write well.  My inspiration has been lax as of late.

Pertaining to things unrelated to writing, I have wondered how people become wealthy with harebrained ideas that continue to produce monetary results.  Take the beer coozy for instance.  A beer coozy, which is actually a misnomer as the coozy can be used for any 12 ounce canned beverage, was invented so as to keep drinks cold without leaving your hand uncomfortable.  Inexpensive to make and easily one of the number one promotional items that companies and businesses use to distribute recognition of their brand, the beer coozy is an item that people buy lots of.  And considering that a beer coozy doesn't really do the job that it is supposed to do -- keep drinks cold -- why do people keep buying them?

Who invented the beer coozy?  How rich is this person due to the unquestionable decades-long demand of their poorly designed, cheaply made product?  Is the inventor of the beer coozy living it up on private beaches, jetting from country to country, zipping around in their Porsche?  Or are they living a quiet life, stockpiling their money, investing it and putting it away for their heirs?

I guess my most important question is Why didn't I think of it?

Lucifer and sex

So, I have been thinking about the type of character I would like Lucy to evolve into.  How do I want her to grow?  In which direction do I want her to lean?  Do I want her to be a close embodiment of myself, someone completely different, or elements of both?

I do know this - Lucy is not a sexual person and will not ever be.  I have never been interested in portraying sex scenes in my writing and, honestly, they bore me when I read them in other people's work.  I may supply a reference to sex as it relates to a character but there's hardly any drawn out sex scenes in my fiction.   In any case, I have always felt that black fiction can be exciting without it.  This is why the very popular genre of Black Erotica is lost on me;  I just find it all very banal and ordinary. 
(I have now found my groove and actove to write about fucking.  People evolve as writers. :))

I have been doing a lot of structure work on my book.  I foolishly believed that I could have it done and to my standards of perfection in three months, before Fall classes start on August 15th.  I'm good, but not that good.  This book is going to take a while.   I have resigned myself to this, and I feel okay about it.  I usually have a problem with feeling like I am not accomplishing anything when I put my mind to do something.

So, I will be writing a lot up until the first day of school but it will taper down quite a bit after then.  I am registered for 16 hours -- 5 classes, one with a lab!  I'm going to be very busy studying and doing classwork.

In the meantime, my summer has been going great.   I have decided to stick around in this apartment (again), and I just want to be happy where I am while making it known that some changes need to be made.  I do need to start writing in this blog more often and I want it to become sort of a diary.

Can that happen?  I guess there's only one way to see. And that is by doing it.