I'm bad at conversation

In general, I‘m not that great at it. I tend to kill conversations (or start them so badly that both parties are grateful when they lapse into silence). I think it’s that naturally I am not much of a chatty person, although if you get me started on a subject, it is hard to get me to stop.

But no, this is more of an apology to any of you out there who have been unfortunate enough to have an IM conversation with me. I am so brutal. Firstly, let me establish that I seldom IM other people—they IM me. Most of the time though I feel like I‘m not holding up my end of the conversation. They try so hard to talk to me, but all I do is contribute non-committal acknowledgements. Usually it’s because I’m just tied up doing 6-10 other things at the same time. I still feel bad though.

So this is an apology to all those whom I neglect via IM. I don’t really mean to ignore you; you just aren’t as interesting as the other stuff I’m doing!

Er, I mean … the other stuff has kidnapped me and hidden me in my own basement and now you must mount a dangerous rescue mission to free me! Yes, that’s more like it…

Well, whatever point I was trying to make has completely escaped me. I should go to bed though anyway. I just finished editing chapter 18 of my novel and reflecting on the fact that it was (before I edited it, turning it from chapter 19 until a medley of salvaged scraps from chapters 19 and 22) horrible. Purely horrible. Hopefully I‘ve managed to transform it into merely tolerable. But it’s not a good way to end the day. I‘m hoping that once I’m through with this editing process it won’t all have been a big waste (and by that I mean, I hope I don’t decide that the novel is a terrible piece of writing that should be shot, burned, and then slowly fed to a group of prize pigs). Not only would that be unfair to the wonderful people who‘ve volunteered to actually read the darn thing, but I would also be mildly put off at best.

Did I mention that one reason I’m terrible at conversation is that I usually turn it back to things about me, and start annoying people by obsessively talking about my writing? :/ It’s not like it’s the only thing I do. No, really, I do other stuff! Well, okay, the other stuff is just a way to not write, which I really try to avoid as much as possible.

In other news, the Border Cats, against all odds, won the North Division playoffs and lost the first of the Northwoods League Championship games. So we have to win tomorrow to have a chance. Go underdogs!