A Break? Anyone? Anyone?

So, I am frequently in awe of the universe giving to you exactly what you need whether you ask for it or not.

I do a lot of long-term planning--and believe it or not, for all my SQUIRREL! tendencies, it was a thing I was pretty good at even in my teaching days--as long as it was work related.

Financial planning? 😂  No.

Home improvement?  😂😂 As. If.

Family planning? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂  Stop it, you're killing me, no, no, no more, please, I'm gonna pee.

But planning a unit six weeks out so the kids would end up giving their paper/projects before the final?

You betcha.

Organizing the unit so the students simultaneously learned a new essay technique in conjunction with the literature they were reading?

Aces, man, I was the QUEEN.

And looking at my writing queue and my deadlines and knowing what's going to make me late and how fast I have to write and all of the shit in the way personally between now and when my next book is due?

I passed up a King's game last night in honor of a deadline two months away.

But... some of that drive comes at a price.

So, for instance, Moon/Fish, which was part of Fish Out of Water 4 and needed to be included in the manuscript? Well, that put me a little over.

And I was stressing. So stressing.

Because I'm starting book three of Winter Ball--this one is Dane and Carpenter's story, and people have been asking me for it for a long time. And it needs to be done... uh... well... very very soon.

But I couldn't... focus.

Couldn't start.

Was sort of wandering around in prose. So many books I want to read... so much I want to knit... so much I want to do around the house... and I couldn't... couldn't quite... couldn't quite start this fucking book.

So today, my drive meter just sort of... broke. Lots of pressing the gas, spinning my wheels, no going.

Instead, almost compulsively, I read my own damned books. Back to back. Winter Ball and Summer Lessons. And you know what?

Those books are really sweet.

Funny, but they both have that oomph! moment to the solar plexus when you realize that this might not be high stakes emotional poker from the outside, but the guys IN the story have literally bet their hearts.

They reminded me of something I needed to be reminded of--funny stuff can be meaningful.

I mean, you have to understand. I just wrote, in a row, String Boys, Paint it Black, Warm Heart, Fiction Haiku and Fish on a Bicycle. That's starting in August of last year.

So in six months I wrote over 450,000 words, and three of those books were long, complex, and put me through the emotional wringer--and one of them was like nothing I'd ever written before, and one of the hardest things I've done with my brain and my writing, period.

And suddenly I had to dive back into this light, snarky, funny, sweet world of everyday average guys.

It was the weirdest thing. I wanted to read... well I've got a TBR list a mile long. I wanted to be reading ANYBODY'S BOOK but my own.

But I read both those books, woke up from a second nap, and wrote 1000 words of Dane and Carpenter.

Words I liked.

Color me stunned.

It's funny how sometimes, when you don't schedule a break for your brain, your brain schedules a break for you.