CSS?

I have done a little work recently on Jack & Jill, in addition to reviewing a short story for another writer. I'm half-way done with my comments for the other writer, and still only half-done on my novel, but at least I've managed to get something writerly accomplished in the past week. I plan to continue, even at a snail's pace, which is usually not my modus operandi, but better that than no work at all on what is most important among my creative projects: my writing.

Apart from that morsel of progress, I am looking at the prospect of learning CSS in the near future. It seems Scott Marlowe's new site has inspired me to do some much-needed work on my own site. Not the blog -- I recently enhanced its presentation and am still happy with it -- but on my actual internet site, or homepage, or whatever you want to call it. I need to learn CSS as a better way to control the look of the pages, and to make changes, without having to go into each and every page and change a thousand little format instructions in HTML. CSS is a new (to me) way of doing that and it saves a lot of time -- if you know how to do it. With my progress with Java I'm emboldened to tackle CSS, which should hopefully be a little (or a lot) less daunting than Java itself.

Otherwise, I'm almost ready to start making my first Java applications. Spilling coffee down the front of my shirt regrettably does not count as a Java application, at least in this sense [boo-hiss, I know].

It's gratifying that my yearn to write is growing steadily. The creative side of me is saying, "Hey, if you can let that logical part of you do all that good work, then why not let the illogical part of you continue its good work, which it was already doing so well previously, and which is more important anyway?"

Can't argue with that logic.

I'm remembering some of the tenets of my belief in myself as a writer, ideas which I had conveniently forgotten about in order to shy away from writing. One of these tenets is, "Don't think about it, just write it". I only distract myself by thinking about my writing. It's better just to immerse myself in the stories and focus on writing them, rather than thinking about the fact that I'm writing them. Another tenet is, "This present task is only piece of a much larger puzzle." I let myself get bogged down in the specifics, and the issues surrounding this one story. I need to remember that the task at hand, and indeed this story itself, are just steps along a greater path. I need to finish this edit so I can get the story out for feedback and move on to my next writing project (probably finishing the Jasper story). I need to finish both of these stories so I can get back to the STONE novel, and then the ISLE novel, and then on to other novels. Can't let myself spend too much time in one place. Gotta keep on keepin' on. Get a move on.

Tally ho,

Adrian