Writing

This has been a mixed bag of a year, about evenly mixed with joys and upheavals. As always, I am my biggest challenge as I plod ahead stubbornly, making mistakes and anguishing for days about what I should have done instead. Forgiveness eventually comes, but never easily or quickly.

I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty responsible person when it comes to other’s feelings. So much so that I tend to get a mild panic attack when I feel I have let someone down, especially when that person is hurt by something I have done or said. It’s a responsibility we all have, this compassion and understanding for others.

Every day I think about what I should be writing, jot down a few notes…and find lots of excuses to not transfer my brilliant ideas onto paper. I even shut down the computer for four days. A rebellion. Let me tell you what happened.

It’s a blustery Sunday afternoon, relentless summer rains in Florida. I’ve been at my computer since 9:00 this morning, with a break to shower, brush my teeth and eat a bowl of soup. It’s one of those days of intense focus as I labor through the long and confusing task of culling through almost 80,000 words of a book I thought I was almost finished with.