E.Jim Shannon

This is getting ridiculous now. I mean I try and go to bed after Adam-12 and I can't sleep. I don't think that has anything to do with it. My diabetes however might. It's 3:52am and I'll be up for an hour and then have my cereal. take my insulin etc. and go back to bed.

Anyway, my goal for 2006 is to get published. Either a short story or a novel. Either way. I also want to write 1,000 words of new fiction every day. Just to get into the habit of doing that and producing something new.

Damn I wish Blogger had smiley's. A bit of a revelation this weekend when Anne called her father in a nursing home in NS. He's 83yrs old and born the same year my father was. Yet dad passed away in 1994. He got hit while crossing the street and was in a coma on the way home. He died March 1994. If he would be alive today he'd be the same age as my wife's father. It got me to think what's going to happen to Anne and I when we get that age? If we do. The thing we have going for us is we are non smokers but I'm also diabetic. Anne's mother was also diabetic and lived until she was 81. It was the diabetes that eventually killed her.

So what are Anne and I going to do? We have absolutely nothing. We have no savings. All we have is our jobs and that's all. It's a sobering piece of reality we will have to face soon. Who's going to take care of ourselves when we can't? We have people at work who are mid 70's still working away and living in their own homes. The only chance for us is if we win a lottery or I publish a novel and make money from my writing. May as well be the same things as winning the lottery. There are lots of long term senior care facilities and us baby boomers are getting older. my wife said that it took most of their savings to stay in the place they were staying, which was Cadillac service. The thing is we have no children to take care of us when we become that age. I'll be pushing 60 in another 5 years.We need to plan for the future.

Okay, lets get away from that depressing thought.

I began to realize in my diary last month or so, that if I can produce 10k/week worth of fiction that would be 520,000 words/year. In 25 years if I live that long which will take me to 80, will give me 130,000,000 words. Or about 130 novels. Wow!. Anne's father is 83 and still has all his faculties together. If I can keep my health and all and live until I'm 85, well it's a bonus.

Earlier I went and removed Drupal and installed it again but I'm still a user although I still have full admin privilege. I think it's because I need to register and that will log me into as Admin. I hope. I don't know. I played with some of the modules earlier and I've got the bare bones of Drupal going but I can't seem to get into the Template. I have no idea where the Drupal Template is. I can view the Template source code and eve nedit the Template's source code but, beyond that, I can't find the bloody thing.

Anyway,I'll be doing the spell check on this things and do my stuff and then, hopefully be in before 5am.

e.Jim