2000 Words - A measurable percentage?

Well, there you go. I've hit 2000 words of my novel, and all of them have been written in bed. That's amusing to me. I'm surprised at how my life has consistently missed my "dream scenarios" yet still worked out pretty well. I used to always dream of writing in coffee shops, or in big oak or cherry paneled offices, or in libraries - but I'm just happy to get some words down at all. So I write in bed.

I still write in other places too, but it seems like the drudgery of day-to-day living eats up a lot of my valuable creative energy.

And I'm also way more realistic than I used to be, and constantly find ways to remind myself that I'm privileged and shouldn't complain.

Perspective: I can write. I don't have to worry about where my next meal is coming from or whether or not my family will be blown up while they go to the grocery store. I don't spend a lot of time concerned that my shelter will burn down, or the water I drink will make me sick. I'm privileged.

BUT - I also have this other perspective that creeps into my mind. There are only two forms of immortality that seem to work to any degree of success.

1) Have kids (done that) and your genetic identity will at least be partially carried on and reproduced. Whether it (or your kids) will survive is uncertain, but it is a way that has worked. If you consider that your own existence required that every single ancestor you've got had to have survived to the age of reproductive viability, and then successfully found a mate, and then gotten through childbirth - well, that's a lot of iffy territory that had to be crossed to make you be here.

2) Write. You may not get published, and you may not be famous, but the only way we really know about the ancient Greeks and Egyptians are through their writings. Aristotle may not have any direct heirs today - but millions of students know his work and his ideas live on.

There is no greater invention in the history of mankind than that of written language. I doubt there ever will be, for it gives substance to the vapors of our minds, and volume to the whispers of our soul.