I think I promised in the last post that I would write more, but I didn’t do a very good job.

My plan had been to buckle down and work on turning all of this into a book, but I’m not doing a very good job at that, either.

The general perception is that life changes after children. Certainly while dealing with infants this is true. And more or less perpetually there are guaranteed to be small chores here and there to eat up bits of time. I believe, however, that it’s more true that parenthood exacerbates pre-existing conditions.

In my case, I am largely unable to bring any personal project to completion. I leave several attempted screenplays and novels and journals and short stories and workout goals and diet plans and house projects in my wake as evidence. My M.O. is that something shiny will always come along and prevent me from finishing what I want to do. The shiny thing these days is Joshua and free time relaxing with Janelle.

If before I didn’t finish a project because I was playing video games, now I don’t finish a project because of Joshua, or because I want to sit and watch some TV after he’s gone to bed. And it’s very easy to not feel guilty about those things. Being a good Dad is a pretty solid way to sleep soundly through the night despite not having gotten anything else done. But we’re not talking about my taking on multi-week demolition projects. We’re talking about things like “find a stud on that wall so we can finally hang some art on our walls after two years in the house”. Doing that and hanging out with Janelle or caring for Joshua are not mutually exclusive in any way. Joshua would probably have some kind of joy seizure if he got to help Daddy do something with actual tools, and the time it takes to find a stud can easily be contained within a commercial break.

Parenting didn’t radically change how I do anything. An organized person will remain organized. A socialite will still find the time to see friends. A gamer will still find time to play games. A writer will still write. And, in my case, a serial incompletist will still have great ideas abandoned about 15% in.

I’m trying to get better. I still probably won’t post very frequently. I have a fitness schedule and I actually work out for about 45 minutes three days a week. But if I’m being perfectly honest I much prefer the instant feedback of posting on the blog than toiling away to maybe turn these thoughts into a book, so I’m more likely to return to these posts than I am to writing book snippets. I have the stamina for blog posts and I get the satisfaction of the words being seen by people immediately and, well, the validation that comes from the comments from time to time.

Plus, I’m entering into a new fatherhood phase. There’s a second on the way. And there’s a lot to cover there.