You can only go for so long.

...until one day you open up the laptop again and begin typing a story. You can write 52 short stories a year, they say. I believe that is a conservative figure, but perhaps I am surrounded by inspiration beyond my bounds. A friend once asked me where on earth I get my ideas. I ask back, "Where DON'T I?" Turn your head side to side. Take heed of the misbehavior and general mistreatment of one human to another. I could be a better friend. I will be a better friend.

Time.

And today I promise myself, I schedule time for everyone else. I reserve my writing time for late at night. My yoga for early in the morning. This schedule isn't always the most effective, and may change. Most likely, it will, and the new year will find shock and awe as others see me not dropping everything I do to be at their beck at call. Forty wins. The next book wins. Love wins. My health wins. I am doing this to be a better future moi.

My Second Book

...was Nowhere, Everywhere. I agonized over its title for oh, about six months. It was the comma that threw me. Would people get it? Would it matter? Should it be an ampersand instead? It turns out, it doesn't really matter, because evidently, my mother loves that book, a work entirely of fiction, more than the story of my great-great grandmother anyway. So Nowhere, Everywhere, it is. Self-published, by my obsessive-compulsive, control freaky little ways. Because I say who. I say when. I say how much. And now, Amazon is selling a copy of my book as a collectible item for double the price. I suppose I should nail down whether I've died, and if I have, my works will be going through the roof.

And then...

A book that takes sixteen years to write, is a book that needs heavy editing. Living through different lives, time zones, secondary surgical excitement, and cross-country zig-zagging insist I give this baby the thrice-over before I slap a cover on it and give it to the world. I have a dream for it to help people, and I don't want it to be sub-par. Soon, though. Coming soon. #outofmyhead

I learned today that penguins mate for life. Even if they are separated for years, when they find each other again, they celebrate in song. I want that. And flowers. What would you do if someone special, we're talking cross-the-icy-ocean-in-a-rowboat special, resurfaced after years, apologized for everything, took complete responsibility, offered heavy compliments, and seemed sincere? *shrug* Write a book about it, I suppose.

Ding.

I remember the old(er) days of Radio, when we would, despite the World's misconception of Mass Communication majors, use intricate Fraction-of-Seconds Math to hit the top of the hour and DING! Play that Legal Station ID. It was as imperative to identify the station as it was to play commercials. What a joy to have taken part in AM radio. What a joy to have taken part in communication, period. So, my point is, DING! The time was 11:00 p.m. It is quiet. All is well. I just made a fresh pot of coffee. My phone has stopped ringing and dinging for the day, and now begins the trusty productive hours of my authoritative nightlife. I write.

Legacy.

In high school, I competed in speech. I was really a nerdy girl. I'm not talking about coding and computers. I'm talking, home on a Friday night, reading Shakespeare's Works cover-to-cover kind of young lady. I don't think there's anything wrong with perusing the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. I own volumes I and II. Also, Conrad Aiken sends a shiver up my spine. I competed in a poetry event, and used a piece entitled Tetelestai. It was weird for the time. It raised questions, and got people thinking. I enjoyed speech competition, because it made us into whom we would become. We got dressed up at 4 a.m. on Saturdays, to get on a bus and have intelligent conversations with our friends across the state. That's pretty good for a bunch of 16-year-olds without smart phones. In college, I struggled to find a poem as good as Tetelestai, so I used it again. I went to Nationals with it, and got a spring break trip out of the deal. That was the first plane ride of my life. How will you be remembered?