After making no headway on the novel in over a week - not so much as an attempt since that evening at the bar about a week and a half ago in which a fellow pissed with my flow - I decided not to let an unexpected day off with nothing to do (I wasn't supposed to return from St. Augustine until today but we came home a day early) pass without cause and lugged the Heaviest Laptop on the Planet down to First Street. Pushed through "that scene" and the beginning of the new scene following it for about the length of the laptop's battery life. The progress wasn't monumental, I didn't walk out wanting to piston my fists in the air, but I didn't feel badly about it either. I still think it's going to be another two full years before this thing's through at this rate, but somehow that seems okay. I'm in no hurry to get it done, which is also good, because I won't make rash and ridiculous decisions just to move forward that I'll later be either a) too lazy to backtrack and change or b) have painted myself into such a corner that I'll have to delete a third of the manuscript in order to remove the cancer.

     One thing I've realized just in the past few days is that: as important as my writing is to me, and as crucial as it is to the wholeness of my soul to write whenever I can, and to one day complete this particular manuscript which has become a part of me, it is not the source of my sadness. I thought for awhile it was this manuscript dragging on, especially since this novel is so personal to me and I thought maybe I was leaving my spirit lingering here in this space, where James is lingering in the novel, and that was part of my problem, but I don't think that's it at all, as real as it may be that when the novel doesn't go well it brings me down, or working on certain scenes can sometimes drain me until I feel overbearingly sad for a day or two. It has a little bit to do with my day job, a little bit to do with my home life, a little bit to do with my love life (though not as much as I may pretend), and a little bit to do with something else I used to fill a lot of my time with I'd taken a break from. And as necessary as I think that break was, and as healthy as it was, I think maybe it's time to get back. I could easily walk away from it all, call it quits, and no one would try to talk me out of it, but I think part of my problem has been a certain sort of longing. A hole where once that lay. So it's time to get it back. And while I don't expect it to solve my problem over the past few weeks, I expect it to help considerably.