Getting Started

I'm sorry about point 3 in my last post.  Waving words like "loser" around is simply cruelty, unquestionably.  I strove to overcome the lack of wherewithal in those readers who find themselves wanting to work at a game world, only to find themselves repeatedly failing to do so.  If it comes as any comfort, it's but an echo of the sentiments that used to swirl around in my head for decades, which I truly think was incremental in leading me to a place where I could work every day without excuse.  For any creator, no matter what's being created, this is the #1 problem.  I want to work.  I can't make myself work.

Getting Started is a Canadian National Filmboard animated short from 1979 ... so it's dated.  The struggle is not.  The struggle is very up to date.  Every person who's ever done anything has had to overcome a natural resistance against working — perhaps it has something to do with biological organisms surviving through the conservation of energy.  Perhaps it's the constant comparison between ourselves and someone else who's obviously better at this thing than we are.  For myself, I find the will to write emerges from a constant struggle to remain confident about myself, my message and my ability.  Days when I lose that struggle, I don't write, and I feel awful when it comes time to turn in.  Days when I win that struggle, when I've written something meaningful, or finished tasks that really needed doing, I snuggle into bed happily.  This is the only real measure that counts for me: how do I feel when it's time to sleep.

Most days in the big picture, it takes no more than writing a post, or putting together a few pages on the wiki; it's getting past a deadline with work, or managing a day of spring cleaning, or taking all that stuff to the dump that's been waiting for weeks.  It's day to day stuff.  But if I take on something, um, bigger, the measure is skewed.  Suddenly, it's not enough to write a blog post.  Suddenly, I don't give a damn if the laundry gets done.  The only measure is the book.  Did I write enough book today?  No?  Then I hate myself.

It's been a touch and go week.  There've been interruptions and a page of work that wasn't saved that had to be done again, and a day lost to my real job and so on.  Despite that, I had a real victory this week, something to be really proud of, something that's made Tamara inordinately happy.  I feel good about that, but tonight I'm going to bed without any book done and, well ... fuck.

Anyway.  My partner Tamara is on a salt-free diet on account of kidney problems she's having.  She isn't in dialysis but the diet thing does spoil her mood most times ... though as I worked as a chef for many years I've been able to solve a lot using trickery and spices.  There's a great deal that can be done with a salt free diet, if you can maintain and control the amount of sugar — which she also has to keep low, as she's a type-2 diabetic.

Anyway, for several years, she hasn't been able to have pizza, which she likes.  She began talking about it a few weeks ago and I did some research and talked to the Italian market down the road from us.  The problem isn't that the pizza dough is flat, it's that the flatness has to be overcome by the richness of the sauce, which I can't produce with salt or anything but a stock I've made myself.  The market rightly suggested San Marzano tomatoes, which I haven't cooked with in many years, but which I realised were right to be strengthened by baking the tomatoes first before making the sauce.  The oven draws out more of the sugar, while it has to be left right to the point where the tomatoes are just starting to burn.  I par-boiled the tomatoes first, drained them, reduced the drain to thicken it and baked the tomatoes.  Earlier I'd boiled the left overs from a cheap pork roast that had a big bone in it, which made great stock after about 12 hours of simmering.  The pork stock went in the sauce, the tomatoes went in the sauce and then with garlic, onion, basil, oregano and dill, the sauce was gently stewed for about an hour.  I could have gone longer, but with the other set up, it was enough.

I made the pizza dough just as I've made it in half a dozen restaurants, where I used to make fifty pizzas every day.  I didn't have a hobart mixer or a hook, but I just made three pizza doughs.  I have a true pizza pan that I obtained from a place I worked at many years ago (the kitchen manager asked if there was anything she could do for me and I asked for the pan), which is a gawdsend.  I cooked the final result, a chicken-mushroom-feta pizza at 500 degrees and it came out perfect.  Exact restaurant quality, as I've made it for many years.  Tamara was thrilled.  Fully healthy, no salt, minimal sugar, tasted fantastic.  I ate one quarter and she ate the rest.  Then three days later, I took out one of the frozen doughs, let it defrost on top of the warm oven and made a pork loin-Hawaiian.  That came out perfect too.  Tamara is beside herself.  She gets to have pizza any time she wants, as much as she wants.

I should feel great about that, and I do ... but the fact is, I didn't get anything written yesterday or today.  A blog post is light, easy, fun, no pressure, no need to get anything accurate or right, or enduring.  Not like a book.  Writing a book is a bitch.

I better get something written tomorrow or I may fucking kill myself.