No Longer A Place for Second Thoughts.Forward!

When you're a writer, you are basically a retailer of ideas.
Ideas are your stock. The writing is your product. So, your inventory costs are very low.
Used to be, you needed a typewriter, paper, some envelopes and some stamps. Now, you need a computer and a decent internet connection.
And lots and lots and lots of time. Which is always expensive in anyone's accounting. But for writers--even though you can sneak in a paragraph in the morning before taking the kids to school, or change a word before you go to bed at night--it takes an astonishing amount of time to whittle words into sharp little points that drive your idea home. Even the worst, most prolific novelist really makes pennies per hour when all is taken into account.
But even years are not always enough time to make a good writer into a great one. Ideas--however good--sometimes moulder away in the mind's warehouse--slouched over in dull, lumpy shapes on musty couches, taking up space.
You have all those second thoughts as you go over them--maybe you can make something of them yet, if you just went at it again, brushed them up a bit, moved them around, maybe looked at them from a different angle. Maybe.
But I had this other idea. I'm selling actual stuff. Big stuff that takes up space and costs real money. Lots of money.
Soon, I'll be moving this blog to my online retail site--Hippique-Hippik. I'll have second thoughts about 19th century French sidesaddles and silver stirrup cups.
I don't have time for Second Thoughts anymore. It's forward over the wall!

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The Lost Designer of the 80's

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Stop Telling Me I Must Simplify My Life Now

People love to talk about simplifying their lives. All those adorable tiny houses and the dream of whimsical, simple living! Everyone wants to be Henry David Thoreau or a Shaker or something. Well, without the whole celibacy and religious fervor thing. And with central heating and A/C, maybe. And my headphones. So more like Thoreau, maybe, because I definitely couldn't do that whole single-sex dormitory arrangement. Also, I like to spend Sunday mornings doing brunch with friends, so that whole church thingy? No, that won't work for me. Also--if someone else would do the laundry that'd be great. But the baskets? So gorgeous and simple!! I'd love to learn how to make stuff like that someday. Not now, of course. And I'll definitely need a yard for a dog. Gated community maybe so I can lock up my simple life and travel. Learn about how simply the people live in Vietnam and Japan. We can learn so much from other countries. How they make do without washing machines ...

Second Hand, Second Thoughts

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