Kevin Rant makes the following declaration:

Real novelists make a living from their work. If you've not actually been paid for a novel, then please don't insult actual novelists by calling yourself one.

My first thought upon reading this was "Oh crap! Have I called myself a novelist?"

A quick scan of my blog answers the question "sort of"... I refer to myself as an "amateur novelist" at one point and at another referred to Oliver Willis as a "fellow novelist," implying that I am one. In the case of the latter, even if the title is wrong (as Kevin believes) the association is valid (neither Willis nor I had been paid for our novels).

So, with that aside, is his criticism valid? Part of me very much believes so. Even though I have written three (unpublished) novels, I don't refer to myself as a novelist except with the "amateur" disclaimer or when basically pitching someone else's writing. The truth is that I would consider myself somewhat of a poseur for calling myself a novelist because I have yet to sell and get paid for one. Further, the term "novelist" implies a professionalism that I do not presently have outside of my current lack of publishing success. My novels are of a very personal nature and were not written with publication in mind. Maybe some day publication will be my aim, but I'm not there yet.

On the other hand, a novelist is somewhat that writes or has written novels. By that definition, I clearly fit. I set out the huge task of writing a novel, plotted and planned it, and executed it. The brainpower and time involved in this is not insignificant. It's not writing a book of free verse poetry of ellipses seperating a bunch of depressing words in all lower case letters. It's not even a collection of short stories, which are more difficult but don't have the all-or-nothing stakes that a novel does. My computer is littered with the first 20 pages of novels started but never finished - that many pages in short stories encompasses several and an easy "accomplishment fix". It's 150 pages single spaced pages devoted to thoroughly telling a story with not-just-cursory characters, themes, and so on.

But back to the first-hand, replace the word "novelist" with the word "writer" and I have a grievance very similar to Kevins. I can't tell you how many people I know who have called themselves "writers" without actually going to the trouble of... well... writing anything (or writing aforementioned poetry). My ex-girlfriend Lisa and I actually got into an argument about this. Many so-called "writers" only documented creativity is coming up with reasons why they haven't written anything. Lisa's was that while she was certain whatever she wrote would come out to the satisfaction of everyone around her - including big-house publishers - she was so much a perfectionist that she would truly hate it and herself for writing something so imperfect. Hers is an extreme example, but a lot of would-be writers seem to prefer the sound of the wheels turning in the back of their mind to the sound of rubber hitting the road.

So in that vein, I can very much understand where Kevin is coming from. While technically if they've written so much an email the folks in the last paragraph are writers, I am technically a novelist . It may be true, but it's inaccurate.

I get the (perhaps inaccurate, certainly convenient) impression that Kevin's grievance is with those that are more loud and self-congratulatory about their hobby rather than those that are more humbly proud of their work (such as myself). But as annoying as the "novelist" thing may be to him and the "writer" thing to me, it's possible that the bigger loser in the exchange is the person that's convinced himself he's bona fide novelist/writer without fully living up to their potential. My annoyance with Lisa and others is only partly that they claim to be what they are not, but rather that some of them really could be great writers, but settle for simply developing the ideas in their head and never actually doing anything with them.

That makes me take a step back and look at myself. While three novels may in fact be quite the achievement for someone my age, I haven't made serious headway on a novel in two years. Furthermore, I have to wonder if a part of me is hiding behind the personal nature of my writing so that I won't have to face what is certain to be countless rejections from publishing houses in even a best case scenario (where I actually get published). Maybe in the same way that Lisa hid behind her perfectionism, I'm hiding behind the fact that I'm not a professional so that I can write what I want rather than what might be read beyond a circle of twenty or so.

Food for thought, anyway.

Fellow blogger and novelist Oliver Willis has released the first two chapters of Valley Girl, his novel, for your perusal. I handed off Something So Perfect to an editor-for-hire. Not sure what I'm going to do with it when I get it back. In the meantime, you can still download it for free! Either from the site or ask me in email for the latest and greatest version.

Now, through Oliver and I are both politically minded and write novels, I should point out that there are a couple differences. First of all, my novels are about the inner soul and the nature of the human condition. I'm told that Oliver's novels, on the other hand, have lots of sex.

Now which would you rather read?

Oh. Fine. I see how it is...

Author Lionel Garcia wrote a vigorous defense of Texas A&M in Sunday's Houston Chronicle Outlook section, which is under a lot of scrutiny in recent months for their rejection of affirmative action and a controversial bake sale put on by a conservative group.

I'd link to it, but the Chronicle apparently has a one-day turnaround into the inaccessible archives section for any opinion piece not written by one of its staff.

If anyone can get ahold of the Sunday Chronicle, I suggest reading the experiences of a Hispanic Aggie.

In the meantime, check out the guy's website. I want to read his work some time.

During my adventures on hiatus, I read this jarring piece by Justin Weitz. Not to detract from its seriousness, but it just reminded me of something humorous.

Before becoming an amateur novelist, I was an amateur comic book writer. Some day, if you're really lucky, I'll show you all the Adventures of Shadowguy. One of the challenges often is coming up with names for superheroes. All the good ones are taken all the way from Superman to the Ambush Bug. There are certain variations you can do using words that go well as prefixes and suffixes to other suffixes and prefixes. For instance, take Night-, Black-, Shadow-, Dark- and -Hawk, and -Wing and you come up with:

Nightwing
Nighthawk
Nightman
Blackwing
Blackhawk
Blackman
Shadowhawk
Shadowwing
Shadowman
Darkhawk
Darkwing
Darkman

I bring this up because to demonstrate that, indeed, all the good names (except the weakest of the above) are taken. Which leads to some pretty rotten names. One of which is Stan Lee's recent creation, The Accusor. Cool logo, dreadful name. Dreadful because what good is a superhero who just accuses.

So I could envision this guy just going up to someone saying "I accuse you!" (which is why Justin's post reminded me of it) and then going away. Perhaps someday I will include some variation of The Accusor I guess substantively, it's not much different from one of my favorites, The Huntress. But at least, presumably, the Huntress is hunting someone for a reason. People get accused of crap all the time. Now, to be a hunter, predator, punisher, avenger, those are things to be. But Accusor? The imagery of someone going around accusing people just isn't compelling. That it's just that Mason fellow's job to go around accusing people seems, well, pointless.

Then again, it was a pointless series, so I guess it fits.

[A form of this originally appeared on the No-Lyfe Journal]

"Novelists when they write novels tend to take an almost godlike attitude toward their subject, pretending to a total comprehension of the story, a man's life, which they can therefore recount as God Himself might, nothing standing between them and the naked truth, the entire story meaningful in every detail. I am as little able to do this as the novelist is, even though my story is more important to me than any novelist's is to him - for this is my story; it is the story of a man, not of an invented, or possible, or idealized, or otherwise absent figure, but of a unique being of flesh and blood . . . If we were not something more than unique human beings, if each one of us could really be done away with once and for all by a single bullet, storytelling would lose all purpose. But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of every consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross." -Herman Hesse, Damien

The above quote, provided by Sugarmama on a recounting of her time spend in Montana, resonated with me quite deeply. I first read it a month or two ago, when she first made a list of her favorite posts.

As a writer, we are indeed all gods of our own works. We have complete domain over the characters, what they say and what they do. As it happens, I don't control my characters as much as they control the story. Meaning that I simply make the characters, define the relationships, and they work the rest out themselves. Of course, the characters are created as such that there is really only one course of action for them to take at most times. While I rarely know how a novel is going to end until I'm halfway through or so, by the time I'm done I cannot imagine it having ended any other way. But while I don't exert much control over my characters, I at least have the ability to define the narrative. I can tell the story, which is merely the product of the characters and their growth (or failure to do so), in such a way as to outline the morals of the story. One even leads to another, which leads to another, and so on, but I can explain how these interactions take place, why what happens happens, and what doesn't does not.

So while I'm not omnipotent, I am somewhat omniscient.

I have historically been lucky, in a way, that my life has worked in such a way that I draw lessons from my failures, take notes of my successes, and can generally supply a narrative of where I've been, what I've done, and the ways that I have been affected by it all. My life has been a series of seemingly coincidental meetings and sprouting philosophy and emotion that, for the most part, I've been able to make remarkable sense of it all.

When I was a kid, I adored this girl named Sarah. I called her Sarah Goddess, which to me she was. Of course, the real Sarah Beth could never match the ideal Sarah Goddess that I had created. So while I admired her flesh and mind, what I really adored was merely a figment of my imagination. At the next intersection down the road, I met Selene, who was actually someone I could deal with, but in typical sixteen year old fashion was more in my mind than she was in real life. Then came Ora, who was all too human and, I'd say, the first girl that I ever loved for who she was, not who I imagined she could be.

This trend continued as each step I took seemed an immediately improvement on the last. Even when they ended in disaster, there was nonetheless a lesson hidden in the shards and debris left behind. Like a random object you can pick up in a video game, it was certain to be of use later. Each adventure built upon the last. That's not to say that each was better than the last, but there was a strong sense of continuity where they each seemed to pick up where the last left off. Even when I knew I wasn't with "the one" I still new that this was still a step on the way there.

At some point, the lessons started becoming muddled and contradictory. When the next intersection came, I just I kept driving. So many pitfalls, so many potential mistakes. Everything I did was second-guessed right along side of everything I didn't do but wondered if I should have. My breaks didn't seem to work and I didn't have the courage for a wide turn. And all I could do was keep driving. For about a year and a half, that's really all I did.

That's not to say that I stayed my path. There were some turns along the way, but always dirt roads leading to nowhere. One of them was Lisa, who reminded me that there are consequences even when taking a short detour. I had become embroiled in the very thing I was pressing -- smashing -- my accelerator to avoid. And I grew tired and weary. I realized that something needed to change as I didn't even know where the road I was on was headed. Maybe I needed to stop and ask for directions or I just needed to pull over on the side of a desolate stretch of road and rest. Whatever the case, I needed something.

That was when I posted My Little Identity Crisis Melodrama. It was a few odd turns that got me to do that, as I'd never really used a blog for an unloading of deeply personal things. I'd taken a short hiatus and wasn't sure what to tell everyone, so I left a bit of an ominous message. That lead people to worry and so I decided when I'd go back I'd explain what was going on. Unfortunately, when I tried, I couldn't get the words out. So I applied a narrative to it, put it in the form of a conversation with Lisa, a conversation with my deceased friend Keith, and an abrupt ending. It was abrupt because while I was able to provide a narrative for preceeding events, the characters stopped moving when I stopped writing. In other words, while I knew how I got there, I still didn't know what to do next.

When I finally couldn't deny that anymore, I wrote Me, Myself, & I. I was hoping maybe if I use different characters, version of myself from various points in my life, I might be able to figure out where I should go next. Unfortunately, part way through I was terminated from my job and everything got put on hold. All of the questions suddenly became so big, so overwhelming, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't even begin to try to figure everything out. I didn't even know where to start. Whatever problems I was having in my personal life paled compared to finding work. But job hunting is 4/5 waiting, so what could I do?

Then my ex-girlfriend almost got us kicked out of Starbucks, and suddenly everything made sense...

[Part Two]

Last week, Heidi had this much ballyhooed (by me, and I'm all that matters) post on the subject of seeking the ideal and appreciating the imperfect.

The difference between anticipation and the reality of a vacation or a relationship is not just the profusion of details that life insists on showing us. The difference also lies in the part of ourselves that we forget to include in the equation while we anticipate. We don?t plan a vacation realizing that our minds will wander from the backdrop of scenic perfection to the newspaper we forgot to cancel, the bill we forgot to pay, the work that will be waiting upon our return. Similarly, in anticipating a relationship, we forget to include in our mind?s eye all the quirky details of ourselves. We forget that we are sometimes impatient, sometimes moody, sometimes self-absorbed.

This is a subject I've been thinking a lot about over the past few weeks as I've been thinking about my writing (what to do with what I've written and what to write next). I was thinking of the authors that I admire most and what their contributions were beyond being assigned to discontented high school students everywhere. One of the things that occured to me was that there was a theme to most of what they wrote. What they wrote often said a lot about them. One of my most admired authors, F. Scott Fitzgerald, literarily defines the roaring twenties in the same way that I'd love (in my most bold of dreams) to define my period.

But that didn't really quite work because my writing isn't so much a product of its time. My first novel takes place throughout the 80's and the first half of the 90's and I had to talk to people older than myself to get the dialogue write (note to writers everywhere, the 80's equivalent to the word "sucks" is "bites"). My second novel ostensibly takes place at about this time but there isn't much defining about the time period, and in fact the more you read, the more you begin to understand why. My November Novel is the most period sensitive because of the impact of the musical culture on the character, but it's actually the music culture of ten years prior (during the more formative years of the characters).

So if my writing doesn't define the age as I see it, what does it define? The main characters, some of them based on real people more than others, don't all have terribly much in common. Yet I feel immensely connected to all of them above and beyond the fact that I am their creators. I mulled it over for a couple of days and finally figured it out: my stories are about idealists coming to terms (or failing to come to terms) with reality. The more I analyzed that hypothesis, the more it seemed true. Whether the events in the novel are based on my own experiences, a friend's, or completely the figment of my imagination, the characters are inherently idealistic and the novels are, in many ways, their efforts to make sense of the world when it doesn't fit their desires or determined notions. Some succeed, some fail, some win, and some lose.

That's not to say that they are all the retelling of the same story, because they are assuredly not. As mentioned prior, the characters themselves are rather different people, many of whom wouldn't get along if they'd met. However, despite their different (and sometimes conflicting) ideals, they are people with definite (and sometimes misguided) views on the way the world should be and the world around them is in conflict with the world as they believe that it is or should be.

Heidi took some choice quotes from movies and books to illustrate her point, so I'll take various quotes from my works to demonstrate what I'm referring to. As always, I'll point out that SSP is available for immediate download to the left. Slaughter Chronicles Book 1 and At Heaven's Door are not immediately available, but if anyone is just so interested they cannot bear to wait, I can set the files up to be downloaded quick-like. But my point here is not to sell, just to illustrate what I am talking about.

At Heaven's Door is primarily the story of Robert Andrew Eastlake, a thirty-something bartender and substitute broadcast reporter, and Nicole Johnson Eastlake, his wife and an educator that seems unable to stay with a job for any sustained period of time. Robert and Nicole are the ultimate NF-style idealists who are at constant conflict with one another. Robert, an ENFJ, is fiercely loyal and caring who simply wants to build a marriage and live a typical life. Nicole is an ENFP dreamer who is always gravitating towards the brightest (and often most distant) star.

Robert, tired of waiting on Nicole to come back from being out with friends (more than one of whom she is romantically attracted to), explodes:

"It's not that I don't want you to have friends or that I don't want you to go out and have a good time. But what are you trying to do, really? What are you looking for with these people. You don't need to answer the question because I already know. You want David more than you want anything in this world. You want Brandon more than you want anything in this world except David. Absent those two, Rich will do. Then there's Nathan. There are others, of course, but once you start getting that far down your totem pole, you'll still be looking up. I should know because below all of them I am. And I seemed like enough once, didn't I? When you thought you and I could be married, raise children, and be a happy family. But there's always these other people. More attractive. More charismatic. More something... maybe just more unavailable.

"But you know what? I'm right here. And you know that no matter where you go and what you do, I'll always be right here. In a better world, you'd see that as a reason to stay here and not use us as a launching pad to something greater. But you are who you are and I love you just the same. You and David will never be together. You and Brandon will never be together. So I know at the end of the day, you'll always be coming right back home to your loving husband and son. I just wish that you'd understand that that means something. That for all that you love Brandon and think the world of David, they will never love you like I do. They will never need you like your son does. So you go ahead and keep on chasing that dragon. I'm confident that the three of us were meant to be together. But please... please stop coming home and looking at me as someone who isn't everything you want in a man. And when you're with us, stop acting like we've got you caged and living in anticipation that you can just go out and chase the dragon again."

Some time later, the son dies and Robert leaves her. Nicole, who'd never taken all that much of an interest in saving the marriage while they were together, spends the time between the seperation and divorce trying to put things right. Whether or not she is sincere in her efforts is left to reader for the most part, but here was her argument:

"David helped me move in to my apartment. He was really great about it. He's such a sweet guy. When he left, I almost started to look for you. When they left, you were always there for me. Maybe I can't have everything, but with you I really had something and I had someone who didn't leave. While I was out 'chasing the dragon' as you used to say, I always knew you were there to come back to. Chasing the dragon. You loved that phrase. It's not so mythical, you know. I know I can find what I want and enough to make me happy. Maybe I've just been looking in the wrong places. I can't make any promises but... but you were right, I guess. You always told me that I was wasting my time and energy looking for something better to come along. You were my gravity... always bringing me back down to earth. I hated it when you did that... but I loved you for that. I need that in my life, Robert. I need you in my life... in my center. I need you at my core."

In alternation, both Robert and Nicole realized the enormous potential that their relationship had. It was enough for Robert until he became overwhelmed by events, but it was quite clearly never enough for Nicole until she faced the very real possibility of losing it all and being left with essentially nothing. To a degree, Robert was able to accept some rather horrid behavior by Nicole because what he felt they had was enough to outweigh what they didn't. From the outside looking in, it all appears rather foolish. Nicole, for her part, was able to put up with some verbal abuse from Rob because she knew that at the end of the day, he'd always be there for her. Until he wasn't.

Then they were both left with the spectre of what could have been.

The Slaughter Chronicles is about the adventures of Nick Clayton. On the surface, Clayton is the antithesis of being an idealist. At one point he ponders whether one can be disillusioned without every having been illusioned to begin with. The more you read, though, the more you come to understand that much of what appears to be his immorality is actually latent idealism. He rather brutally cheats on his first wife, but he thought (if erroneously) that he had found something better. Even when everything tumbled and he was left alone, his rationale still held: if I cheated on Cynthia because I thought Amy was better for me, then even if Amy isn't better for me, someone other than Cynthia probably is. After his divorce, he has an array of flings with former students of his. Though they were all several years younger than he, that was in many ways what attracted him to them. As long as they were out of his age range and no relationship with them possible, he couldn't betray and leave them. For all his immoral behavior, Nick is actually a very moral man.

That's not to say Nick's behavior is excused or what he did wasn't in fact wrong. The immorality of his past behavior and his coming to terms with what he's done is actually one of the pillars of the novel. It's the conflict between the way that things should be (everyone should get what they want and no one should be hurt) and the way things are (crap happens). In the second yet-to-be-written novel, he picks up from this realization and says "okay, so if this is the way things are and things can't be perfect, how can they be good?" I give this all away because it's one of many aspects of the novel (which is not as flashback-heavy as AHD) and I trust you'll all want to read about his life and adventures someday, much of which have nothing to do with Cynthia or the flings.

And, of course, Something So Perfect, which is the story of Brad Carter, Johanna Cianfracco, and Rosalind London. Brad and Johanna are at what appears to be the begining of the end of their relationship when Rosalind (an old friend of Brad's) comes down on an unrelated matter and meets up with him. Johanna, not unlike Nicole, is a dragon chaser. Unlike Nicole, though, Johanna is much more clear about what she wants more than anything else in the world: musician Grady Hammond. Johanna and Grady were together off-and-on for a number of years and her passion for him was unparalleled until it all exploded when his band was signed by a major record label. More than just Grady, though, Johanna wants to feel that passion again or at least once more feel the unbridled passion that she did when she was younger.

While Johanna is left to deal with being unable to return to her more passionate youth, Brad and Rosalind are left to deal with what exactly Brad should be doing.

Brad is a physics major turn computer programmer who tends to break down situations into commands and processes. As such, he approaches the situation as a series of processes to her commands. He determines what he will do based largely on what she does (as opposed to how he feels or what he wants). He thinks in terms of mathematical formulas and watches, more than anything else, trends. Is the relationship trending upward? Is it trending upward at the rate that it should be? To what degree should he accept improvement at a more slowed rate than he would prefer? Is there an overall upward trend or is it rather a curve that is at its apex and thus will start bending back downward again? Has he moved the threshold of acceptability to a lower one than is desirable? Should he move it? The problem is that his ability to deal with unforseen events is limited by the paralysis of fear and regret. So he sticks to his formula.

Rosalind, on the other hand, is a novelist. Instead of a formula, she views it all as a narrative. Instead of her pattern being some sort of mathematical curve of improvement or diminishment, it's all a fairy tale where problems occur, are deal with, and there is a happy ending. She and Brad butt heads over their differing views repeatedly as the formula tells him to go but the narrative tells her to stay. Rosalind's outlook, unfortunately, leads to the repetition of error by failing to see the trends that Brad is obsessed with.

In the case of all three of these characters, they all have a vision of the way that things should be. The question for them (and for idealists everywhere) is what to do when reality gets in the way of our preconcieved notions. If Johanna could just let go of her obsession with yesterday, maybe she could appreciate what she has with Brad. If Brad could take a step back from his computer monitor, maybe he'd realize that it's worth sticking out. According to Rosalind's narrative, Johanna should stick with Grady indefinitely when everyone (including Roz) except Johanna see that as nothing but a dead end.

In our lives, we're always confronted with the imperfect. Most people just deal with it and move on. That is easier for some (cynics) than for others (idealists), but who really wants to be a cynic? What does a cynic live for? But unadulturated idealism is the natural path to disaster because it completely ignores the way that things are.

To quote Brad Carter:

?There are four ways things occur in life. There are the things you make happen, things you let happen, things you don't let happen, and things that just won?t happen."

Stripped of Brad's action/reaction outlook, these "four ways" break down into the things that we can change and the things we cannot. Knowing the latter gives us a lot more control over the former. The old Alcoholics Anonymous prayer goes something to the effect of "Dear Lord, give me the strength to change what I can, the serenity to accept what I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen."

Accepting what you can't change is the first step. The next step, in my view, is appreciating it. There is no perfect world and if there were, we'd all be bored senseless. Futhermore, what fuels our differences and "imperfections" is free will. Given by God, assured by our nation, it's the most precious gift that we have.

I'm a believer in what I call dialism. That means that every good trait we have is merely a dial pushed to one side or another. So for every quality we have, we are lacking another. For instance, I have a tremendous imagination. At the same time, I have a very poor attention span when it comes to external stimuli. I believe these two things are intrinsically related. If I had more of the latter, I'd have less of the former. I believe that most of my good qualities also come with the lack of another good quality I might otherwise have. My strong capacity for long, deep thought comes at the expense of it taking me longer to absorb certain simple things than it would be for a person who thinks quicker on their feet. You get the idea.

Along those lines, if I am with someone that does not appreciate my imagination, they will likely have a dim view of me because they would certainly notice my inattention to what's going on around me when I'm off in never never land (because chances are, by not being imaginative themselves, they are more sharply observant more of the time). If someone doesn't appreciate my analytical nature, they'd likely get frustrated by the inability to react quickly because I am too busy analyzing the situation. Or take for instance, a spectrum in which I fall more closely to the middle: Open-mindedness vs. conviction. Someone that reasons more inductively than I do will likely wonder why I accept so many of the absolutes that they questions. If they admire my comparative sense of conviction, they may overlook it. Same for someone with a stronger sense of conviction that considers me to be awfully wobbly.

The degree to which we appreciate the qualities of others is positively corrolated to the degree to which we accept their shortcomings. Very often, we take their qualities for granted and hone in on the areas in which they fall short and we call it "imperfection" at best, and many more nasty things at worst. Maybe in a perfect world everyone's dial would be set to the center and it wouldn't be an issue. But if that were true, we'd have no artists, scientists, and athletes because the most successful ones combine qualities (physical acumen, ability to think quickly, coordination, etc) that they have generally at the expense of other qualities.

None of this is to say that we shouldn't constantly seek to improve ourselves. If anyone is a booster of constant self-improvement, it's me. But at one point we have to realize that even improved, we may still never be as good at something (paying attention in class, creative universes in the mind, etc) as someone else is. Look closer at them and you'll see that they'll never be as good at certain things as you are. I constantly strive to improve myself, but I also appreciate myself for who I am. I would ask that of any romantic partner and it would be required of me towards them.

Dialism also applies to other aspects of life. Take, for instance, my last job. It was, to say the least, far from perfect. I actually have a week's worth of posts on the subject that I'm mulling over whether or not to actually post. My boss was micromanaging, the office chaotic, my job description and priority lists vague, my hours long and my pay only sufficient because of my hours. On the other hand, my boss was clear on how he wanted things done, my job was rarely monotonous, my job description flexible, and I was given the freedom to work what I needed to get the job done. So then did the pros outweigh the cons? Maybe or maybe not. What's important to note though is that they are intrinsically connected.

The trick (to me, anyway) is to realize what you want most (from a job or partner) and what matters less. Then look for qualities that contradict one another. You can't ask for someone that is really organized but absolutely loves to do things spontaneously. For my part, I appreciate people that are extremely organized and self-directed but need someone that is patient and easy going. To an extent, these collide. People who are well organized are generally so because they hate having to look for things because they're... well... impatient. Which is not to say that someone can't be both, but if so their organization likely results in some other deficiency somewhere else. For what it's worth, I've never met someone who is both, though I have met people that are somewhat organized and somewhat patient. But that just means they're midpoint down the dial.

We all want it all, but absent that, we should try to find what we want most and never stop appreciating it.