Been to the Desert

I have finished “The Socratic Method.” It weighs in at 85,000 words, all of which came in a rush over a month and a half.

Now? Now I haven’t written a word of creative endeavor for two weeks.

As I said in the last post, when one is in the Zone, everything works. But when the Zone time is over, you’re back to struggling for a single word.

I have 100 unfinished projects in my various computers, notebooks, brain. You’d think I’d just move on to one of those.

Ha.

No, every time I pick up one of those skeltons, the grinning bones of the skull just jeer me. You think you’re a writer? Write this! And it extends a bony middle finger toward me.

I used to panic during this down time. I used to worry that I would “lose it.” Whatever “it” happened to be.

Now I know. After the white heat of finishing a book, the brain needs to rest. The creative juices, which flowed so freely, need to be replenished.

I know that Ray Bradbury says to write every single day. But he was Ray Bradbury. He was selling short stories at the age of 16 and never had to do anything with his life but be a great writer.

Me? I’m a lawyer by day. Profligate by night.

No, I’m going to let the brain come back to writing. I’m starting to feel the itch to finish this little novella I’d started, a male version of Blackbeard called “Blue as Midnight.” I have about 1000 words on that story. Might as well start in.

Or I could work on my memoir, “Untethered.” It’s about when I got fired in 2018 as a lawyer in Placer County. I realized, while looking it over, that there’s a lot more to the story than I first realized. But then, I’ve lived another three years since starting that.

So, dear reader, this little blog–which I’ve neglected for two weeks–is the first salvo in the resumption of hostilities between myself and eternal obscurity.

I’m writing again. See?