I have now flipped my writing work day around. I’m getting the animals out early because we now have just over four hours of daylight a day. If I wrote until noon, I would not be able to get everyone out, get the chores done, or do agility.

The disadvantage of this is that I’m worn out when I finally do get to work, which today was at 4:30 p.m. I think, but I think more slowly than I might early on. So be it. Should the weather turn foul, I will resume working in the mornings. I just have this sense I need to take advantage of what is now unusually good weather.

I resumed working on Lessons Twice Learned this afternoon. The break from it did me no good at all. This is a project in which I have to maintain momentum or it will get increasingly more difficult. And if it gets too difficult, I will give up on it. I felt close to giving up on it today. I spent a considerable amount of time this evening, thinking about what I need to do. It’s like I took several steps backwards in taking time off.

I have 14 pages to go, and then I’ll be done with my third revision. I did revise the first five chapters a month ago, so I have revised more than three drafts worth. Tomorrow is Pete’s last day of work before he goes on winter break.

Right now I’m attempting to maintain a progression of thought, going from my insights as they relate to creative visualization to meditation to body awareness. I’m now bringing Centered Riding Instructor Sally Swift into the ongoing conversation. I’m going to bring in yet another person, but I’m not sure who this will be. It’s such slow going. I have a lot of other projects that I’d like to be working on, but quality has to take precedence over quantity. The most important thing of all is that every day, I must force myself to sit down and write. This way, more rather than less gets done.

After I finish writing this dispatch, I’ll type it into the computer. I write each one out by hand before doing this. This takes time, but this way I revise as I type. Careful revision is what separates a blog from a dispatch.

And there’s also Raising Raudi. After I finish writing up this, I’ll begin revising/copy editing that. And there’s job application letters. I’d like to finish the other two projects first, but time is of the essence. The job positions all have deadlines. There are no deadlines for my two projects.

Why am I doing this? Why don’t I just close up shop and call it good? The answer to this question is that I just don’t know, just as I don’t know why I have so little interest in learning Photoshop, Web page design, or graphic art. Always, when I do these things, I grow impatient because I feel like they’re taking time away from writing.

Pete’s dad’s area of scholarly expertise was the good life. I so wish he was still around because I now have questions for him, mainly about what constitutes the good life and how one determines if they’re actually living it. He would have answers, of this I am sure.

Next: 330. December 11, 2014: Tripping the Light Fantastic