Preparation

I've been doing this all wrong. I keep thinking about the things I'm doing, and how they're a means to an end, a path to take to go where I want to go, but that's not the case. I used to know that, but somewhere along the way I forgot.

Working on ships, it used to piss me off no end when people sad 'what happens on ships stays on ships,' and claim that it wasn't real life out there. I always refused to take that point of view, because if you're spending nine bloody months out there, that's a good chunk of life that I'm not ready to write off. Admittedly, a lot of the shit you can get up to seems surreal, like you're living someone else's life. You can cram a lot of experiences into a short time on a ship, and looking back it sometimes doesn't seem real, but you can't qualify a part of life as not real. I used to know that.

Well, I'm getting back onto that train of thought. The past couple of years, I've been talking about becoming a writer. I've talked about leaving Las Vegas. I've talked about living on a sailboat. I've talked about travelling more. And the whole time, it's as though I've been waiting for something. I've been preparing for when I'm a writer. I've been getting ready for when I live on a sailboat. And I need to stop doing that.

I'll leave Vegas one day. I'll do all the things I talk about, because, hell, I'll never live it down if I don't. I expect each and every one of you to give me a full serving of shit if I fall short in anything I intend to do. But I've been bumming around thinking that what I'm doing right now is preparation, and doesn't really count. I got a cheap sailboat, not because I like the boat, but because I'm getting ready, learning all I can, for the day I can finally move aboard a bigger one, and cast off. I'm preparing for the future by doing this now. But when you keep doing that, you forget that now is part of your life too. None of us get enough time to live, and if you spend too much time looking ahead, you miss chunks. So the boat, the writing and editing I'm doing that is preparing me to be an author, sure, it's all preparation. But I'm enjoying it. I'm already doing things that a lot of people never do. And while I'm doing them with the express intention of moving on to bigger and better things, I'm going to try not to lose sight of the fact that I'm a third of the way through the final edit of my first novel, which already makes me a writer. I'm spending weekends out at the marina, working on the 23' Ranger sailboat that's mine, which already makes me a sailor. The preparation for what I want to become, what I want to do, has already got me there. And I almost didn't notice.

Mappage.

Today, I bought my first Nautical Chart. Actually, I bought it a couple of days ago online, but it arrived today. It's of the Oregon Coast, from Yaquina (oh, those crazy Oregon names) Head to Columbia River. The measurements are in fathoms, degrees, minutes and seconds, and if I hadn't run out of pins I'd have put it up on my bedroom wall tonight.

It's much more fun to look at the chart than read the news online. More bullshit from politicians. The Republicans want to cut the deficit and taxes. The Democrats want to cut taxes for some, but don't want to vote on it because they're already winning. Christine O'Donnell wants people to stop masturbating (from now on, if I say I'm going home to disappoint O'Donnell, you know what I'm saying. Yeah you do.) Don't Ask Don't tell isn't being repealed. Lindsay Lohan's in jail. Blockbuster filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Whereas when I look at the chart, with its underwater pipelines marked, and low tide levels shown, and names of places I know almost scribbled on as an afterthought (after all, they're on land, and who cares about the land?), I can forget about most of the crap that's being dealt to us by the people we elected, and the people we pay to report on the people we elected.

I've been having a really productive month so far. I talked about motivation last post, and again it's pretty much all I want to talk about now. Yes, I'm quite political, and I talk about it, but I'm just not all that fond of writing about it at the moment. I want to write Book II in the trilogy, and find out how Brokes and the rest of them are going to get to where I'm sending them. I want to write the screenplay for Taras, and find out if Jake and Brett are going to be friends at the end of everything I'm putting them through. I've got ideas for short stories, and different genres to dabble in. I don't want to write about the Democrats inability to organize their party, and I don't want to write about the Republicans ability to organize their party around no platform. It just pisses me off, and there's enough going on to piss me off without putting that into my writing as well. Will I write about politics again? Probably, it's too fascinatingly frustrating for me to stay away from, but for now I need to work on things for myself. Gods know that the bloody politicians aren't working on things for me.

So if all the crap is getting you down, do what I've done. Find something you like. Focus on that, instead of the ratings battles, or the career politicians. Keep a picture of it on your desktop, or bedroom wall, or office cubicle partition. I've got my boat, and now I've got a nautical map to imagine plotting a course across.

Just got to learn to read the bloody thing properly. And plot a course. . .

obsession

I have a healthy tendency to obsess about things. I say it's healthy, because it's how I've manages to get where I am today. I obsessed about working on cruise ships while I was in University, and two months after graduation I signed on for my first contract. I then obsessed about working for Cirque Du Soleil, and two years later I moved to Las Vegas and started working at New York New York. I've become obsessed with being a writer, earning a living doing it, and I'm chipping away at that too with novels and screenplays and short stories underway. And now I have a new obsession. It's been about a week now, and it probably has a little to do with watching the DVD of my 24th birthday last week, and some of what's going on financially in my world right now (that's a whole 'nother blog). But basically, I've become fixated on living on a boat. My own yacht. Nothing too guady or ostentatious, but no floating bathtub either.

It just sounds ideal for where I am in my life right now, or rather in a couple of years once I have a writing income. I know that's assuming a lot, but if I don't aim for it then I won't get there. But living in Vegas for over six years, I feel a little trapped. I'm trapped by the mountains that ring us on all sides, and the dirty ceiling of smog. There's still too much for me to go and see and do in the world, and living a 5 work-days-a-week isn't cutting it for me. I want to sail through the islands of Puget Sound and catch my salmon for to grill. I want to sail back through the Panama Canal, and actually set foot in South America rather than be yards away and still not there. I want to go to Galapagos and dive with the schooling scalloped hammerheads. And I want to do it all on my terms, in my time.

And it's the perfect time for me. I'm young enough that it still seems like a great idea. I'm also young enough to be able to forgo some of the things we take for granted in our daily lives, rough it a bit. I'm single, with emotional attachments that would for sure be tested with prolonged absences, but that's been the story of my life so far and those friendships I still have are all the better for it. I'm old enough that I won't just jump into it without doing the proper research and preparation. I'm old enough to know that it's not as glamorous as most people might think. And I'm old enough that I've done a lot of things that were goals as I was growing up, so I'm in search of new goals.

My opaternal grandfather was a fisherman, and my matyernal great-grandfather was a fisherman. Or maybe great-great, I'm not a hundred percent on that. My father was in the British Merchant Navy after school, and that's partly why I worked on cruise ships, to fulfill some sort of perceived familial obligation. But it's more than that, I realize now. There's something terrifying and fascinating between me and the Ocean. It scares the crap out of me, with its changeable moods and bewitching peace. It's a healthy obsession to have because it's seventy percent of the planet's surface. And wherever you go on it, you're linked to everywhere else.

So I shall live on a boat. I'm giving myself five years to achieve this goal, and I'll definitely be talking about it again as I head towards it. Five years. I'm obsessed.

I've already got a name picked out.