Restless

Every once in a while, my reg­u­lar writ­ing life comes to an abrupt halt. I am at such a moment: I have two books at pub­lish­ing hous­es, and must wait for copy­ed­i­tors to com­plete their work before I dive back into those texts. I have anoth­er book—not near­ly so far along—sitting with an edi­tor. I promised her I would not touch the book—as I am too apt to do—until she gets back to me with her vital sug­ges­tions for revi­sions. More­over, I am just about to go on a sched­uled research trip for yet anoth­er book.

The prob­lem is, I have lived this way for so many years that I am very bad at writ­ing noth­ing. I become rest­less, with an over­whelm­ing sense that I am miss­ing some­thing. Of course, what I am miss­ing is writ­ing. How­ev­er, I am not, right now, sup­posed to be writ­ing any­thing. How do I han­dle this? I sit down and write a short sto­ry that has been vague­ly on my mind for some time.

My point is, as I start to write, as I play the keys, I have a phys­i­cal sense of being released from my rest­less­ness. Do not mis­take me: I won’t pre­tend to say the short sto­ry is good, that it will lead any­where, much less that it will ever will be published.

The fact, how­ev­er, is sim­ple: I am ill at ease unless I am writ­ing some­thing.