Hello. Hi. Nice to see you again – and if this is your first visit, welcome. There’s a contact page link around here somewhere if you need it, though I get most of my messages the old-fashioned way: through the crows.

I’m here, strapped to a gyro, trying to balance all of the things – as well as work on the revision of my novel, Foam. I am…happier with it, but not necessarily with myself. I am going so slow. Ten pages ahead, go back thirty and reweave a plot point, start again. And again. It is a rewrite. I am going deeper into ideas and values held and taught to girls – and by deeper, I mean subtly pointing it out in prose. (Why yes, I do grow lofty about my own work – especially typing at a standing desk. I don’t know why. This is why I don’t think I would be a good teacher.  I fear I’d be tyrannical in a classroom. “You will kill that darling, do you hear me? Is that an adverb I see? 57 pull ups and you can watch me weep as you do them because you ermine-eyed scribbling child, you used a cliché later on in the same paragraph.”)

Congrats Damien !

(I have no pictures to prove it, I did wear a bathing suit while attending this graduation party on Lime Lake. Being comfortable enough with my own body to get so close to naked in front of friends and acquaintances was a nice side benefit to my true intention – which is to keep my body in shape to avoid surgery and/or replacement parts for as long as possible. I really don’t care for doctors. The morning Pilates/weight training/cardio routines are nothing but torture, but so is the idea of being cut into with a scalpel by a hungover surgeon, thus, I do A LOT of mat work.)  

Speaking – sort of – about that, many thanks to Tamara Grisanti and the editors and staff at Coffin Bell. It’s my second appearance there. I finished reading a previous issue in 2018, came up with the idea for this, wrote There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch , and then it sat there on the computer until sending it out to the only place I could see as it’s home. So, see? Sometimes, writerly things do work out.   

The path to the labyrinth and the ones to the creek were finally mown, but the weedeater remains broken. Seven rows of wood have been put up and once the mornings return to being pleasant enough to work outside for more than two minutes before my eyelids sweat, I will.  The electric fence for the puppy is operational, and the training has begun. We’ve eaten green beans, peas, and tomatoes freshly picked from the garden. At night in the newly rewoven lounge chair, I’ve watched bats dance across the full moon.

And, as is often the case, the smoothly working outside masks inner turmoil. Dear lord and heaven, marriage is hard, even when we’re agreeing.  Strapping myself to a chair to write & rewrite the same set of words is hard, too. The latest entry to the page of quotes reads, “People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.”

So, I step away from the mental spin cycle, open the goal book I started in January, re-read the quarterly breakdowns, find the to-do book, list 4 tasks to work on when I need to do something other than writing, but mostly this month, all I have been doing is writing, with seemingly little to show for the effort, but the habit. Oh, also stressing. Lots of that this month.

This is one of the two places I’m privileged to practice my writing habits. The other is basically the bleak hidden corner described in Orwell’s 1984, but with better light.

I hope your July was mighty fine. Thanks for stopping by and for the read!

Cheers!