IWSG December, 2017, As it Was and How it Is

It's IWSG Day.  The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh, our brilliant ninja leader. Co-hosts this month:Julie Flanders, Shannon Lawrence, Fundy Blue, and Heather Gardner.  To read posts from all other members, click here

I walked outside looking for the newspaper at 6:00 this morning. It was dark and the moon was still full on high, glowing pale through a light cloud cover. Somewhere in a tree behind the house an owl gave a couple of low hoots. I walked up the driveway shivering, remembering a similar morning seven or eight years ago when there, out in the first breath of morning, the traffic hiss on the two-lane highway a quarter-mile away traveled on chilled air. Like today, a faint breeze rattled the remaining paper bag oak leaves, and I’d stopped to drink in the world, the quiet, the peace, the smoke drifting out of my neighbor's chimney. If it wouldn’t take me forever to find it, I’d search for the post I wrote about that frozen moment, all my writing then so in tuned to the present.

Bursts of description are no longer my practice, those brief essays, definable instants fashioned into the blog posts that prodded me along in my writing life. Sometimes, I miss the sense of accomplishment attained via a five-hundred word spurt. Now it’s all about the long haul. First the idea, then chapter-the-chapter-by-chapter grind. A hundred million edits, critique partners, writing group reviews. Almost incomprehensibly, years have gone by and my focus remains on the same two projects. 

As I write this, the sky through the shadow trees across the road brightens to a peach grey. A teenage neighbor has slouched-walked down his driveway. He stares at the ground, his hands deep in his cargo pockets while he waits for the air-brake hiss of the school bus, for the yellow doors to split open and swallow him into day. Around me, the cast iron radiators clank, the house pops as it settles, the air vent  in the kitchen kicks on with a whine. Commuters have begun their short-cut travels by our house, taillights glowing red behind them. Day has begun. Before long I’ll have to get ready for work. I've done nothing on my projects today. But I do have this. Evidence of a short haul and it's been fun. Tomorrow I'll put my head down and write.

Wishing you all wonderful holidays and blessings in the new year.