It was a mistake...

...for me to have taken the weekend off.

I didn't do any work, didn't think about work, and now that Monday's here -- and almost gone -- I haven't been able to muster up any enthusiasm or creative ability. Sleeping through the day would have been more productive.

Part of this I blame on the first item on the agenda. My friend D., the photographer, has long had a habit of shooting assignments no one asked for. From time to time, he sends off piles of old photo-shoots to editors, who generally just send 'em right back. Last Friday, he made a sale, and it turns out these were photos for which I had written the accompanying article. I went through all my available files and couldn't find a copy*, so the editor sent me a Xerox of the manuscript. It arrived today.

I wrote it almost 15 years ago.

My writing style has changed a bit since then (for the better, I hope), and I felt a mild headache coming on as I read through this piece. It was dashed off in a hurry for a client who didn't pay much -- not that the current re-do will add perceptibly to my bank account, either -- and, worse, it left out some important facts on the subject I have learned in later years.

So instead of a near-freebie consisting of a shiny new lede and a few reworded phrases here and there, I'm basically doing the whole damn thing over from Ground Zero. And the editor wants it this week.

To tell the truth, I simply don't feel like writing this story. Or, for that matter, any of those waiting their turn for completion. There are a lot of minor reasons -- such as checks I'm still waiting on, months after they were due, and so on -- but I'm beginning to think the real deal-breaker is this:

My first foray into magazine pages hit the newsstands in July, 1986**. With over a thousand stories -- ranging from roughly 400-500 words to ten times as long -- in print, I've said every damn thing I'm going to be able to say about my subject area at least once. Or, in some cases, dozens of times.

I'm feeling a bit like Frank Sinatra, who had to have gotten tired of walking into gigs and always having some drunk call out "sing 'New York, New York,' Frank!"

I have to find some kind of distraction to get my head working right, Jim.

After all, I'm not getting any younger.

At least I'm not getting any older for another couple of days.


* My computer doesn't have a floppy drive, and thus I can't load the DOS-based writing program I used in those long-ago days. If I can't do that, I can't read my old stuff and, sadly, I am missing several dozen copies of magazines that have carried my stories over the years. Or, if I actually do have a copy of this particular piece, it's lost among the hundreds of magazines I did save.

** Just out of curiosity, I took a break from writing this, dragged it off the shelf and re-read it. Not bad at all.