Been home sick for a few days, feeling a little stir crazy. I’m off of cold meds now though, and can think again, which is nice.

When I was in New Orleans I missed the keynote speaker’s lunch, I was out taking the awesome Diana Rowland to lunch :D, but I heard about it afterwards, how the speaker had had a very difficult life and overcame a lot of obstacles to succeed in her writing career. And the people I was with were talking about managing to write despite that, and how hard it must have been for her, and what I wanted to blurt out but didn’t was that of course it was hard, but she wrote despite of it because writing was what saved her.

I didn’t hear the speech myself, but I can almost 100% guarantee that that would be true. I think the writing saves a lot of people. I didn’t say anything at the time because if I had it would have felt like I was being too forward and the company was mixed. I didn’t want to put that much of myself on the table and have another awkward overly honest moment like I feel that I am known for.

I just feel like that’s true for a lot of us who write. It saves us.

This past week has been a little hard in that everything’s turned in elsewhere and it’s all out of my control now. As Captain Control Freak, and Queen of Impatience, between-times like these are rough on me. I like to have plans, and back-up-plans, deadlines, and outlines. Right now between books and between contracts, I definitely feel adrift.

But nothing’s changed really. I’m the same person I’ve always been. There’s me, and the writing, and the need to write, because it’s the only thing that makes sense, the only tool I have to make the rest of the world clear. It’s always been the only way I can try to understand things — maybe even help fix them.

So I’m back in it. Again. And if I trust in it, it’ll save me. Like it always does.