Taking a step back…

I thought about a lot of things today, most of which don’t really matter in the long run. I thought about some new models I was going to buy, how I was going to handle revising the rest of my novel, playing sixteenths on the guitar, and a lot of other things. Basically, from the moment I got out of bed around 1300, I was thinking about the future.

The future can be a scary place, especially if you believe that the Terminator series will come true (just watched Salvation tonight), but that wasn’t what I was thinking about. A lot of it was about me personally and what I wanted my future to be.

I looked up the process for becoming an astronaut. You apply either when they open up applications, which occurs whenever they need it, or you apply and wait. I wasn’t exactly sure which track is followed, since I can’t really even try to go through that process now. Then, if you are accepted, you go through two years of training before you are even considered to fly a mission. Even after those two years, if you aren’t selected to be an astronaut, you still have to work for NASA for at least five more years since they have you on contract.

There are just so many questions beyond those big ones that I still need to sort out, but I’d like to be able to sort those two out as soon as I can. The astronaut one won’t happen for another six-eight years, at minimum (I need to go through grad school), however…

I feel better when things have an answer, and even more so when I find out that answer. Maybe that’s why I like Math and Physics so much…

EDIT: Oh, and to get more little updates on my life, you can follow me on Twitter, although I can’t guarantee that what you’ll read will be meaningful…

Distractions

Lately I have been trying to do a ton of productive things, like my continued revising on my novel, some painting, friendship building, and guitar, among many other things. I just always seem to get distracted by little things, or I just don’t think things through and it backfires or doesn’t go according to plan (see HERE for dramatization).

Take yesterday, for instance. I closed myself in my dad’s home office, which we only use to wrap Christmas presents or talk on the phone, to revise my novel. I got through six pages, which is a lot based on how much revising I actually do, as shown below, but then I decided to take a two-hour nap. And today, when I should be doing more revising, I decided to take a personality test to figure out if I actually am crazy and to make sure I was still being myself in a certain situation that you probably are already aware of (I’m an O84-C74-E37-A93-N60, if that makes any sense to you).

But really, my biggest distraction has been my own mind. I think and analyze and postulate and theorize much more than I should about things I have no control over. Not a good way to live, my friends. But what can I do, turn off my brain? If only summer were that easy…

Revisions

A few days ago, I printed off the 80-some computer pages of my novel, which roughly corresponds to 130 book pages. While only about a third through the story (or less), I wanted to re-read everything, take some notes on character development, do some revising, and basically clean up what I have so that the next section can start fresh.

I’ve only gone through 30 of the pages so far, and I’ve been covering them with red marker pen. While this may seem bad in your eyes, I love it since it lets me revisit the old story and make it better. It’s always good to make things better, right?

Anyway, it will probably be a few more days before I finish it. I still have a lot more to do, plus most of those first pages had some revising work done on them by me a few months ago. I won’t be started the next big segment until after I finish this work.

Speaking of work, I start my job on Monday. I don’t mind, as it will give me money to save for next year, plus provide a little bit of a distraction from my life. I’ve had a lot of stuff going through my brain recently, not all of it good.