Lately, I seem to have problems getting along with people. It seems that I’ve gone from attracting people to actually repelling them. Or it could be me needing to get away from life in the slow lane and moving into an even slower lane.
I still have a couple of months before I take off on my Pacific Northwest trip to see my sisters. I’ll be camping along the way — and hiking — so I should have plenty of time to deal with no one but me. Until then? I don’t know. Bite my tongue, I guess.
Luckily, I will be able to get away for a while this weekend. It’s not much of a getaway, actually — just a concert, shopping, and gambling. (Big gambler that I am, I might even spend five whole dollars!) But it is a change. I’ll miss my faux backpacking trips, but it’s probably a good idea to give my body a rest.
One thing I’m hoping from this change of pace is a mental reset. When I came back from my cross-country trip, I’d planned to finish all my works in progress. I did finish two, but the third one sits moribund. In my defense, after I finished the first two books, I fell and pulverized my wrist, destroyed my elbow, and broke my arm in dozens of places. The resulting surgeries, drugs, and continuing recuperation have taken a toll on my creativity.
Despite what I wrote yesterday about still being a writer whether I finish that last work in progress or not, I really would like to finish it. It would be good not to have it in the back of my mind (not that it’s much of an inconvenience, because if it were truly nagging at me, I’d be writing it).
Unfortunately, when it’s done, I’ll have to decide what to do with it, which could be a large part of my motivation for not writing. I’d like to find a publisher who would actually help me promote, but that seems to be a dying breed. And to me, just posting a book on Amazon is not my idea of being published. (Besides, I truly do not like how much control they have of the book market.) Nowadays, though, there is no way around dealing with them unless I register the book with the copyright office and then just give it away as a download on my website.
But first, I have to finish writing the book, and to do that, I have to get my creativity switched on.
It seems like a lot to ask from one quick weekend getaway — reset my life so I can a) stop repelling people: b) get back into the discipline of writing; and c) find the sweet spot of creativity.
But even if all that doesn’t happen, just having fun would be fun.
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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.
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