A few months ago, Dad asked me if I was still writing. I think he was trying to distract me from the whole world-on-fire situation, but it didn’t work: I immediately started crying. (I’ve been more than a little depressed, obviously.) I have not been writing. At all. The only writing I’ve done was at retreat last summer, when I finished a story I started at retreat the summer before. (The sections I read at retreat got positive reviews. I sent it to one very competitive market at the end of April. It got summarily rejected. And that’s that, for the moment, anyway.)
I go on retreat again at the end of the month. I have no idea what, if anything, I’ll work on. I haven’t been able to look at the novel. It’s too big, too hard, too much. Maybe I’ll work on an essay about my health. Maybe I’ll write fluffy fan-fic just to find joy in writing again. Maybe I won’t write anything and will just read and sleep. But I’m going, if for nothing else but to see my friends and spend a week in nature and away from life stress, work stress, and news. Because how can you create when the world’s on fire?
