365 Photo Project - Day 140

Taken: May 20, 2010, sunset
Location: Healdsburg, Ca.

I've been without my laptop for almost a week. The touchpad stopped working and I had to leave it with the geniuses at Apple. Already, I was having trouble keeping up with my posts here. But losing my laptop, where I file most of my entries at night before I go to sleep, really put a hitch in my get up and go.

I know I talk a lot about how far behind I am and I hope you will forgive me. I guess when I started this project I didn't really think much about the commitment I was making. It is a big commitment, not really in time as much as effort. Ironically, it's not finding images that slow me down. It's coming up with something write here that does.

Strangely -- or apropos depending on how you look at it --  this project has become more about the writing then the photography. I suppose that means the joke's on me.

I'm a little fascinated by it to be honest because after a day of writing (which is the way most days are for me now), I'm surprised at how much I have to talk about. I know that part of this has to do with the subject of my novel as well as a couple of other things that I've been dabbling in. I've been trying to do more with my work, I mean as an artist. It's not that I don't like what I've written before -- I'm very proud of my first novel for example -- it's that I feel that I needed to find something more,  dig deeper, find another gear so to speak. I wanted to be better.

I've talked about this here before, but it's been a long time since I've had a novel published.  It's occasionally been a source of disappointment, perhaps a little humiliation. I don't really know why I've not finishing something I like these last few years and part of me doesn't even care. But for a long time,  for better or worse -- mostly worse -- I blamed myself fully and completely for my failure. 

Of course, I played a role in the publishing drought but a lot of other factors were involved too. Too many to name really. Whatever. I just knew it was time to give myself a break.

And I'm not beating myself up about it anymore, at least not every day. In the mystery book business, authors are expected to pretty much have a book out once every year give or take a few months. I don't think I'll ever be that kind writer. But at the same time, if I'm going to take some more time to write something, it's got to be really good. Imagine that thought cycle running around your brain and it doesn't take a big brain to figure out why I've been unpublished for 10 years. 

Talk about your self-fulfilling prophecy. 

The funny part is I never thought I'd be one of those writers that got writer's block or couldn't write for some reason. I've always loved writing, never really thought about it as work or drudgery. In some very real and important ways, writing has been a sanctuary for me especially when my day job was a bitch. But some where in the last 10 years or so, it has become work and I've forgotten what it's been like to write free.

Of course, this makes me unbearably sad. But if there's anything I can say about it now, it's that I'm beginning to break out of that bad place, open up my self-constructed cocoon and fly unbound. There's going to be a day some time soon when I'm going to be able to sit at my desk and the words will come with an ease that will make my heart sing. I have faith remember.

Until then, I'm going to think good thoughts and let my better intentions guide me. Tomorrow's a new day. Always. And being an eternal optimist, I always expect it to be a good one.