A Kick at the Darkness

I have an opportunity today to write a journal entry. I don’t like blogging, but I don’t mind journaling. The difference is all in how I think of it, but there’s really no difference at all.

On September 25, we made our way to St. Andrews, only 20 minutes from the U.S. border. Not sure why I feel the need to say that, but it feels both safe and ominous at the same time.

It’s been a whirl of wind these past nearly two weeks as I conducted workshops and one-on-one meetings that will continue into tomorrow. Now and then, I’d snatch an hour or so to have a meal and catch up on work. It’s not just retreat-related stuff. I had a new book release this past Monday, and I’ve barely been able to begin to process what that means.

Life is busy. My life is pure, unadulterated chaos. And it needs to stop.

So, for now, I have brought myself to the artist studio in the woods (the “studio in the garden,” they call it here), and I am intent on putting the finishing touches on my next novel, The River in Winter, before submitting that version of it to my publisher. Today. I’ve been trying to do this for about six weeks now, and all that's required is a few hours of uninterrupted creative time. So, today, I will at least push the ball closer to the goal line.

There’s no wifi here and no running water. Feels like I’m in Granny’s shed out be the see-ment pond. But it might be just what I need for a few hours.

Something about Thoreau comes to mind: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover, I had not lived.”