Homecoming

Until this week I hadn’t written consistently, or very much, in a long time.

I hadn’t done the real writing that connects me back inside my self, the writing that cements soul to skin. Instead I’ve been doing marketing things, promo things, the things I’d rather have a publicist do but there are few publicists who can do what I can do (especially at my excellent rate), so I’ve done the Flirting with Forty promo myself. But the problem with PR and promo is that there is no end. However, a book does has an ending, and at some point, after much writing and rewriting, you reach a conclusion, a resolution, and the end is good. The end gives peace. Self-esteem. Because you’ve done something very hard to do, you’ve done something it took you years and years to learn to do.

Promo is different.

Promo can’t be easily measured and the results can’t be measured and there’s no way to know what was most effective, what resulted in actual book sales and what was just a bunch of ego stroking exercises.

I’ve been tired for months. The kind of tired where the body feels under siege but now I’m writing again and I’m beginning to feel like me again. I know how to do this writing thing. Even when I don’t.

I know how to put words down even when I’m not sure why I’m doing this. Because my mind does. My subconscious mind, even w hen it’s not communicating with my conscious mind, has a crazy half-cocked plan that actually turns out to be something good and sometimes quite beautiful.

This is why I say, if only because my good writer friends Barb and CJ and Tessa and Bronwyn all said the same thing in Atlanta, it’s time to write. It’s time to do what makes you, you, or me, me.

And true enough, as I write each, each word returns me to myself, bit by bit, word by word, sentence by sentence.

Words aren�t the answer for everyone. But for a writer who makes sense out of the chaos by lining the words up, by getting them out of her head and onto paper, it�s the right thing, the best thing, the only thing left to do.