Worked on My Book for the First Time Since October

As long as you write something everyday. I agree and I disagree. I don't count journaling. I don't count blogging. Outlining. But then I start to not count just a page or two.

It seems like there should be priorities with projects, but you can't make yourself make yourself. I have tried. I have failed. My main fear is that in my patience, someone else will write it. I remember a girl on the volleyball team in college saying she never misses a practice because somewhere out there her opponent is practicing. And I still think about that. But then I try to remind myself we don't have opponents. Not like that. That's what neutral me believes, at least, until I see a movie trailer and think, "That's...a lot like my XYZ." But as a lover of things that I love, I would go to all movies about things I love, right? Several people watched this quirky Netflix film and texted me about it. "It's so you," a thing no artist hopes to hear. I avoided it until I was home alone with lots of snacks and no more papers to grade. I sucked in a huge basket of air and pressed play. It wasn't me at all. Or, rather, I would never have made it. I have rarely known such relief.

It's not about what I want to do. It's really not. It's about what I can do. Okay and a little about proving something. (To be honest.) But what I want has never been what's going on. It seems so beautiful and fortunate that I have rarely wanted. What an enormous gift.

Anyway, I finished another chapter of my book just now. Chapter 8 out of 12, to be exact.

It Is the End of Days and I Have Chosen to Write

We could be nuke dust any day. I have no pretenses about avoiding desserts in this vacation wonderland. If I die, it will be with a cinnamon roll in my belly.

As things collapse and teeter I imagine myself dirty in a roving commune. My last job won't matter, but the skills I learned at it will.

Looking ahead I wonder what I will finish. What are the last words I want to speak on a stage or send to a reader? I thought about canning my book until I feel more than 50% certain I will see October, but once I have journaled, read a chapter of Ghost Story, drank my amaretto coffee, watched Big Brother, and even fallen down the Twitter void, my computer shines like a Zelda treasure chest. I sit at the desk and kick it open. A four note victory plays.