November 2008

My flatmate, Ross, hit me with some terrible news on Monday. He told me that Hollywood were in the process of creating a remake of “Oldboy“, the amazing 2003 South Korean movie directed by Park Chan-wook.

After I got past my initial shock and disgust, we talked about how it would be possible to even make it a Hollywood movie, while retaining what was great about the original version, and we both struggled to find a way to do it. Especially when we considered the names that had already been attached to the remake.

The remake looks set to be directed by Steven Spielberg, and star Will Smith as the main protagonist. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against either person, and in fact I’m a fan of a lot of their work, but the tattered remains of “Oldboy” once it’s had the Hollywood treatment is enough to make any movie fan sad. I have a hard time imagining Spielberg will be able to capture the gritty and disturbing feeling that made Old Boy special, and I just can’t see Smith in the role originally played by Choi Min-sik.

Then further news landed in my feed reader today that made me lose any hope for the remake. That news, is that screenwriter Mark Protosevich is in talks to write the screenplay. Have a look at his previous writing credits. They are not movies that inspire me with confidence. In fact the only one that isn’t completely terrible is “I Am Legend“, and well that wasn’t very good.

The news seems to have gone down just as badly with most of the movie news sites as it has with me. It’s been called the “Worst Idea Ever” by Slashfilm and I’m pretty sure I agree with them.

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It would seem that my somewhat ranty kick-myself-in-the-ass-to-get-writing post has had some immediate effect. I found myself exceptionally cranky this morning at work, and realised it was because it was taking time away from my desire to really begin to build a writing career. In the brief spots of downtime I had throughout the morning I couldn’t help but jot down ideas for articles, and blog post ideas for here and over on SSDC.

I’m going to try to flesh some of these out tonight, and also work on a query letter or two. Plus I’ve been really itching all day to write more of my NaNoWriMo novel. It’s a great feeling to really want to sit down and write. I’ve been missing this sense of urgency for a little while now, and I’m relieved that it’s started to come back in recent days, culminating in my “stop thinking and start doing” post. I hadn’t realised how frustrated I was becoming with myself for sitting back and letting hours pass by where I wasn’t trying to achieve my goals, instead of doing what Gary Vaynerchuk calls “Hustle 2.0“.

I’m relieved that I finally recognised how badly I was procrastinating, now I need to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

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I’ve had the last three days off work. It’s the first time I’ve had more than a day off, in a single period of time in almost a month, and it’s three days that were essential to relax, and recharge my batteries. The only problem is that because I’ve been working so much in a job I now despise, it takes so much more out of me than it really should. I find myself more exhausted than I should be, and more in need of a serious rest than anyone else in my position who enjoys what they do. It tells me something. It tells me that no matter how good I am at what I do, no matter how skilled I am at my current profession, it is something that is never going to make me happy.

I’ve talked about my distaste for my current profession before, I’ve talked about my hope that it is only something that pays the bills for a few more years, and that I can leave it behind me. I’ve talked about my desire to write for a living, but I’ve never made any real effort to make this desire a reality.

My intent for 2008 was to begin a writing career as a secondary income. My intent was to push myself to learn more about the craft of writing, and to learn more about the business of writing. I’ve done very little of either. I found myself locked in a state of mind that is predominantly based around the fear of stepping outside my comfort zone. I know, without doubt, my abilities and talent in the IT world. I know that I am exceptionally good at what I do, and I think that it is that confidence in my own abilities in this industry that holds me back from the career I would choose now.

It’s funny, since I was 7 years old, that’s 22 years ago, I knew I was going to work in the IT industry. I even knew my job title, one that I eventually had a few years ago, and developed beyond a year or so later. It came so easily to me that I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. It was something that I never had to try to feel comfortable with, it was just part of me. I can’t explain how natural it feels to me, and even now, you can give me anything, be it hardware or software, that I’ve never seen or used before, and I can guarantee that within a few days I’ll be at a standard of knowledge about that technology that I could quite easily make a living from it. But it just doesn’t make me happy any more.

I’ve tried to bridge the gap between my love of writing, and my natural abilities and love of technology over at Silicon Souls. I’m hoping that I can develop that site to be something that allows me to embrace both my passions at the same time. I hope that I can be more productive with it than I have been recently, and use it as a means to find some peace in my conflicted mind. The site was created to allow me to be part of the technology world and also to be a place where I could write about something with the passion I used to have back in the beginning of my IT career. It’s something I’ve struggled with recently but something I hope I can rediscover in the coming weeks.

I find myself unsure of my choices. I find myself thinking that even though I find no joy in the IT world, that my natural inclination towards technology is so fundamental that I should give up on any beliefs to move beyond it, and just embrace the fact that it is going to be a major part of my life. That no matter what I do in the future there is always going to be part of me that is simply the “IT Guy”. While I hope that I become known for more than being the “IT Guy”, I understand that until I make the steps to push through that boundary, it is my current and future identity. I understand that I’m always perceived by friends, and colleagues in a light I no longer wish to be associated with. I also know that until I make the effort to truly begin a writing career, I don’t deserved to be associated with anything other than the IT industry. I have made no significant steps towards my goal. I have made no steps to portray myself as anything other than what I currently am.

I look back upon this last year and I can pinpoint mistakes that are obvious to me now, but at the the time I never noticed. I look back upon 2008 and realise that I could have done so much more with my life. I look back and I’m disappointed in myself for not pushing beyond my current comfort zone. I look back and know that I’m tired of looking back. It is very clear in my mind that as the new year rolls around, I will be sure to put myself in a position where I can take the initial steps to be more than I am. To push myself to be something other than an IT guy who writes. To make sure that before my 30th birthday I can say that I’ve put the first steps towards my dream of being a full time writer in motion.

I look back over the last year and I ask myself, where did the time go? What did I really do with my days until this point? Why, oh fucking why, am I still grinding away in a system that is no longer one that makes any sense? I have nothing that I can honestly say answers these questions. I have no answers that I truly find satisfactory. I’m as lost with these questions as I was last year. I do know one thing though.

Yesterday, however influential, is gone.

I refuse to look back any longer. Tomorrow is everything. Tomorrow is the day my world changes. Tomorrow is the day that I brush off my own self doubts and reach for my dreams. Tomorrow I do what I’ve been planning for the last few years.

To do any less in unforgivable.

I’ve never not done something I said I was going to do, (although sometimes it’s taken longer than intended), and I’ll be fucked if I start now. I said I was going to go skydiving even though I have a fear of heights. I said I’d go scuba-diving even though I can’t swim. I managed both regardless of my fears, and became stronger for both.

I will not give into some bullshit insecurities now. I refuse to allow the fear of failure to define who and what I am. I refuse to avoid trying because I might fail. I refuse to settle for a life that is not everything I want it to be. I refuse to be a fraction of my potential. I never want to look back on my life and wonder what could have been. I never want to look back and say I didn’t make the effort because I was afraid.

I WILL make significant steps towards a writing career in the next six months. I WILL have one foot out the IT door by the end of 2009. I WILL live up to my own expectations of myself. I will no longer be afraid.

Tomorrow I begin anew. Tomorrow I put my feet upon a better path. Tomorrow, it all truly begins.

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My progress for this years NaNoWriMo has been severely hampered by the fact that I’ve been working almost solidly since the beginning of the month, in fact I’m sure it’s since the last week in October. There have been very few opportunities for me to actually sit down and write for more than ten minutes at a time. Because of this I’d managed to get about 500 words in before the beginning of this week.

Tonight was the first time I’ve really been able to sit down and write continuously without any interruptions. So far this evening I’ve written about 2500 words, and I’m making some decent headway into the first chapter. Thankfully I’d outlined about 80% of my novel idea for this years attempt, so even though I’ve had a tough first few weeks I new exactly where I had to get to, and roughly how much I had to write for each chapter.

I’m planning on getting another couple of thousand words down tonight if possible. My plan is to get the first chapter finished tonight so I can move onto the chapter two the next time I have the opportunity to sit down and write. I need to get about thirty thousand words down by Sunday evening so this weekend is going to be a major catching up effort.

If I’m going to hit my target for the evening I need to get back to it. Time to pour another glass of wine and see where the story takes me.

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This last week has been extremely busy with work. I woke up last Wednesday to discover that Barack Obama had indeed won the race for the White House, and the American Presidency. That was the last day I had a day off work.

Since then I’ve been working in our second Edinburgh office, preparing them for the migration into our network, and then over the weekend actively moving them from their old, slow, externally managed systems to our corporate systems that my boss and I look after.

The process was pretty smooth, with only a few minor issues causing us problems. One of which was a minor fault, but the fix became so time consuming I had to devote eight hours of my Saturday to resolving it. Needless to say that day was a complete pain. Overall though things went according to plan, and for a change I really got to use my brain. Normally my days involve boring desktop support queries that suck the life from you. With this project there was a lot riding on the fact that we had to get it correct first time, hence the brain usage. I think I surprised our consultant, who was helping us with the migration, with how much I’m capable of, because he usually only gets to see the version of me completely crushed by the monotony of the daily grind.

We had everything to a point where it looked good on Sunday evening, although this was without any major user activity. That potential point of failure was dealt with today. Again, everything seemed ot go pretty well. There were a few minor blips, but my boss and I were in today to smooth them over, and I’m back there tomorrow to do more of the same.

It’s going to be just as busy in week ahead too. The problem with working in IT is the end user doesn’t care about the amount of work we crammed into two days over a weekend, or how exhausted we are. All they care about is being able to get the files the need to do their job and ask us for the completely pointless, bottom of the pile services that they had with their old system. Things that are completely insignificant in the scheme of what we had to do, but to them becomes the biggest issue in the world that needs to be fixed there and then, even though they don’t need to use it until next week. Or the person who came up to me today while I was in the middle of something and said they didn’t like their password and could I change it. What ran through my head was slightly American Psycho at that moment. It’s not as if we’re not extremely busy making sure everything fundamental to the actual operation of the company runs correctly… take a deep breath…. count to twenty….

Sorry about that. There have been a few people recently that I just wanted to punch. But my training kicks in when I’m dealing with them, and I just smile and tell them I’ve added it to the list and that as soon as I finish the task I’m dealing with I’ll get right onto their issue.

The good news is I don’t have to work this weekend. If I had it would have been three in a row and my tolerance for dealing with the users would have been completely eroded. Who knows what have happened at that point. Because I’ve worked the last two weekends I actually get some time back. One day of which will be used next Monday so I can have a long weekend, and have a good few days to wind down, and relax. I only have four more days to get through, and that’s going to be tough considering how burnt out I felt at 6pm today. Still four days this week, four days next week, and then I get a full week off work. The week is set aside to finish NaNoWriMo, and I’m going to need the time because I’m waaay behind at the moment.

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