So the trolls that threaten creative projects with interruptions, distractions and negative thoughts—or perhaps it’s more these critters are invited and then suddenly appear—are on holiday. Try though as I have, I can not spy them anywhere. A few weeks into a new manuscript, that’s a tasty discovery.

Outwardly I’m working as much on this piece as others; nothing changed, yet something is tangentially different. Time spent on this manuscript doesn’t feel like an effort, really, which I feel almost guilty about. And while it is possible there’s only enough steam powering the engine for a short story—maybe a very protracted one, it’s pushing the 20,000 word mark presently—whether it rises into novel territory or not is all right. The story wants out. I’m ducking and getting out of its way.

Caught up with three old friends that I lost touch with over the past year today; it’s funny how easily months without news from them slipped by, unnoticed and unmarked. Then we connected and it was old times again.

A more interesting corollary to the reach-out-and-just-say-hi vignette was that I only called two of them. While on the phone with the second, a third friend, who I hadn’t thought about phoning today, yet missed, suddenly returned a message left in August.
If I believed in such phenomena I might consider that sudden callback a coincidence, but I don’t. Nearly everything happens for a reason–in fiction and in life.

Two more scenes wrote themselves. Several occasions I wondered why that happened again. Why for once instead of scrapping around like a dog for ideas or plot points, the problem was keeping pace with the stream hitting the page. But I banished those thoughts quickly, right as they surfaced. The less energy invested in questions without any answers–at least revelations I’m perhaps not ready for–the better.

I’m letting this wave carry me until she breaks against the sandy shoal.

Had the sort of day I could relive again. Woke up, made breakfast, did the decaf coffee thing, and wrote. And then suddenly it was lunch, so I ate, wrote for a few more hours, and napped with Oedipus. Grabbed dinner to go and edited the day’s pages. Now I crave beer.

Today marks two weeks on a project I restarted with a much hesitation. Curiously, it was much easier to come back–once committing, anyway–than it was setting the manuscript down nearly a year ago. To say that the first day was like never ditching the story would be a lie. Still, I have been amazed how quickly my feel for what’s on those pages returned. When it really hums I hear the line as I’m typing it. More importantly, the holds keeps appearing when I reach for them, and they reveal themselves at moments when I’m not thinking about writing hooks to launch the characters forward. In fact when I start considering what the door into the next scene might look like, they shut, and the scene breaks down.

This type of experience is very new to me. Maybe I wasn’t ready for a ride like this in January, so I resisted climbing on board. Or maybe I just fought what stared me in the face because I couldn’t recognize it. I lacked the necessary trust in the process and turned the very momentum working with it could generate for me against myself.

Even the usual fears are different. A typical concern: whether the story has merit and is worth my time. Now I’m starting to think the reason this one didn’t let me go is because there’s something driving the scenes that’s bigger than my insecurities.

Which is even scarier.