Credit Score Dating and Writer's Block

Today, I lived the life of a retired person. I ignored the writing that calls to me for attention, and attended to the writing, acting and directing of others. I talked on the phone with my nephew and friend about planning projects, the excited flush that comes when one project takes you over, and the horrors of rewriting. The worst of it is that the project being reworked awaits finishing while the new idea wants to push it aside. Logic tells me to finish the one first, attend to the next, and the next, in order. Emotions tell me to drop the current one and jump head-long into the idea for as long as it lets me ride and as far as it takes me. Instead of giving into either, I fall in-between them in a sort of lumbering limbo. Then I watch a movie. Through talking with both Diane and Erik, I realized that the new project tugging at my brain might be a sort of salvation. Without revealing too much about it, mostly because at this stage it is still only an idea worth researching, and the step after that will be getting someone interested in it before I write, I am hoping that it will provide me two crucial things: discipline, and deadlines. I lack discipline. I really do. I love distractions and seek them out. I do not set a specific time aside for the work (as I like to call my writing), or even a set amount of time per day devoted to the work. But if I had a very specific format to fit my words into, that I knew was due at the publisher’s within a specific time, I think the structure would help me focus. That focus would extend beyond the project in immediate mind to the rest of my potential ouvre. It would be like being back in college with essays to write for three classes, due in the same week. What I have to do is create a structure like that regardless. But I have a very hard time sticking to deadlines I set for myself. I also have not blogged since I wrote my list of causes worth dying for. At this point my lovely bride of 38 years might ask me to include on the list “Grammar Preservation,” but I’m a writer – what do I know of grammar? The truth is, my mind has been wandering down paths laid out by others, and in my current state of mind any distraction will do. Yesterday, for example, on the Today Show, I saw something that made me cringe to realize how out of touch I am – or everyone else is – with what matters. It seems that more and more people seeking potential life partners online are using credit scores as a major screening tool in picking someone to date. Credit scores, of course, represent one’s ability to earn lines of credit and pay their bills. To get a credit score you virtually must have and use credit cards. How you manage them is becoming a criterion for dating. This seems foreign to me, on the edge of absurd. How anyone can argue that your credit score is romantic or sexy has lost my attention from the get go. Don’t worry about being pretty or cute or handsome or witty. Just use your American Express. Not that what I think matters here. My credit was erased in one fell swoop two years ago and Diane and I have not taken on a credit card since. Oddly, my credit score is still within fair range and the number has not changed up or down in two years. We have gone to cash only in our house. But, then, neither of us is dating. But could this be a cause worth dying for? Reversing the credit report disclosure clause in online dating systems? The debate rages. All I can say is, with distractions like this, who has time to write?