The further away I get from Texas (time-wise), the less sure I am about looking for work there, the more I realize that I’ve never been sure about it to begin with. While I was there, a friend of a friend asked if I was planning on moving there. “All of Sharon and Jon’s friends move to Austin,” she told me. I told her, more or less honestly, that I probably wasn’t. Just visiting. Getting back here to the cold of Pennsylvania, I wasn’t so sure about that. Now I’m not so sure about not being so sure. But I need to move. And if it’s not Austin (about which I doubt I’ll ever be sure), and it’s not New York (where the jobs I want are in a place I don’t want to work), then where?

This shouldn’t be mistaken for crippling indecision. I’m still job-hunting. I’m still submitting my resume. And I still very much want to leave Pennsylvania. I’m just starting to wonder if I’ll ever figure out where it is I want to go.

Tonight, I wrote a little under 700 words, which for me is very good. Trouble is, it’s an entirely different story, one that most definitely isn’t a novel and definitely not part of the one I had in mind for Nanowrimo.

I think it’s very unlikely that I’m going to have anything approaching a 50,000-word story when the month is through. But I am writing, which I think is the most important thing. And I’m very eager to get back to it. If all I have to show for it when I’m done is a short story in need of editing…well, there are worse ways to spend November. There are worse things than failing to write a novel.

One of my favorite stories on the subject — probably more myth than truth — concerns James Joyce. According to the story, a friend came to visit him one day and found the great man sprawled across his writing desk in a posture of utter despair.

“James, what’s wrong?” the friend asked. “Is it the work?”

Joyce indicated assent without even raising his head to look at his friend. Of course it was the work; isn’t it always?

“How many words did you get today?” the friend pursued.

Joyce (still in despair, still sprawled facedown on his desk): “Seven.”

“Seven? But James… that’s good, at least for you.”

“Yes,” Joyce said, finally looking up. “I suppose it is… but I don’t know what order they go in!” — Stephen King, On Writing

After two days, I have about 1000 words. I’m going to have to do much better than that.