Here, There, and Somewhere Else

Sorry for the absence. It wasn't intended. Life sort of reached out and throttled everything else. The bad part is that it was busy without much satisfaction or at least completion. In fact I'm farther in the hole than I was last week at this time.

The signs of spring are here. Ants have shown up in the house, which means it's time to spray (one of the few times my wife lets me use harsh chemicals). Ants are the downside to having so many trees so close to the house. If we have the money this summer, we may remove some of those trees. The ones that I can do are as good as gone, but there are a few that are too close for my comfort. Also, the daffodillies have sprouted up. I know some others of you have seen them come and go, ours aren't open yet. There's plenty of pick'em up sticks in the back forty. There's also a few trees that will need the chainsaw taken to them.

This summer things need to be done. Chores I've successfully procrastinated on the past few ears will no longer be denied.

It's also been awhile since I've talked about the big "D." I'm still not out of the woods, but it's much better now. I haven't talked about it because it's now ignorable. Yes, that's a male trait. I'm trying to be better. It's also a male symptom of depression (we ignore it). So when I say it's now ignorable, I'm not really ignoring it, but breaking the cycle no longer requires constant attention or vigilance. Sure, the gremlin voices are still there telling me that I'm just plain stupid, but the reflexive response of telling them where they can go is back. They'll soon learn they can't get a rise (or actually a dip in energy and mental ability) out of me so easily. This is the area that gets most men in trouble, I think. At this point, even though I know I'm still in the big "D" it doesn't feel like I am. So it's easy to dismiss as "I'm a little blue" or even ignore it completely. The difference, though, is the time you spend here. By my calculations I've been in big "D" now for about three months, give or take. On the way down, this area is one that most guys just "put it out of their minds" (the mental equivalent of "walking it off"), so most of us don't notice it when it's still hanging around after a few weeks.

So as I'm doing stuff and thinking about what to write I've come up with this. Here's a rough comparison of what a difference big "D" can make.

Last year at this time I was working 16 hours of overtime on a regular basis, the Village stuff was a little busy with a new employee and changing to spring, and I had gone to another new conference and did pretty good there. This year I'm finally back up to 8 hours of overtime, the village stuff is about twice of last year, I went to the same conference and was in my own opinion, "just there."

Here's the big difference between the two and shows the effects of big "D" (and because this is a writers blog, damnit, it's about the writing), last year by this time I had finished two short stories and was working on my third, and was having the vague notions of what the novel needed to be about and writing some scenes out. This year, I have no new short stories completed, two are in the works (one from November, the other just recent), and the novel progresses at a rate that would make a glacial pace seem a bit hasty.

Sure, the pressure from the Village job is exponentially higher than last year, and I'm doing more freelance stuff (part of what I need to get off my duff for), but still. That's a big change. And winter is my normally productive writer period. I'm hoping that with this new story coming, and other writing things happening, that this is the sign that the damn is cracking and we're about to see little Dutch boys running for their lives soon.