The unexpected joy of not writing

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When happily not writing, I manage some gardening. Or potting up marigold plants, placing them on the back steps.

It's a funny concept, that title. Yet I authentically felt that a day or two ago, like some kind of gift from heaven.

Because when I'm not writing, often I'm cross about it. Not in a spoil my day sort of magnitude, but in this niggly I should be accomplishing something related to writing. And no matter how busy I am with other agendas, no matter how happy I am, always (ALWAYS) there is a deficiency if I'm not writing something new or basking in the glow of new work recently completed.

If I wanted to analyze that, and I don't necessarily do, but if I CHOSE to analyze it, I'd say that for much of my adult life all I wanted as a personal goal was to write fiction. I didn't get started until I was forty, and for the last nineteen years (GULP), writing has been my.... Okay, first, since I haven't written anything new (and finished it) in well over a year, it hasn't been nineteen years, more like seventeen and a few months. Regardless of how many quilts I fashion in varying styles, first I am a writer.

I also planted some spider babies; they live in the mudroom for now, destined for the living room once they're thriving.

Okay, after Christian, wife, mum, abuela, etc. I am an author and for over a year I haven't written anything other than a couple of chapters which might be the beginning of my next book. The weight of that missing element colours how I perceive myself, not so much for the better, yet it has. Or it did until a day or two ago. Suddenly not writing didn't chafe, hurt, or aggravate. Because, guess what Present Me - not writing is OKAY.

Wow. Huh. Yup. Not writing is absolutely FINE.

I can feel Past Me twitching. Future Me smirks. Meanwhile Present Me sits on the sofa, typing out some fairly revelatory sentences. Not writing is part of my life too. And maybe, as I age, not writing might be more of the norm.

DUDE!

Yet it's true. Will not quilting also go the way of not writing? I'm not prepared to answer that. All I can say today is not writing doesn't....hurt. It's okay to be an author who isn't currently producing a single written word (because I don't count blogging as writing).

Why not, Future Me asks with a dose of snark in her tone.

Um..... Because it's not fiction, I reply in a voice almost that of a retort.

She nods, grips her upper body, then taps her foot. You blog a lot, you know.

Yeah, I know.

It's writing, you know.

It's real life, I answer.

She laughs, then snorts. It is, she begins, but it's still writing.

I glance her way. Am I going to start producing non-fiction?

Oh no, she smiles, again snorting. It's just that what you view as writing isn't merely the made-up stories. It's far wider than that.

Are you saying merely possessing the ideas for novels counts as writing?

She shrugs, then drops her arms to her sides. Just be aware that writing isn't wholly composed of sitting in front of your computer. It's more encompassing than that.

Huh. Really?

Really.

Huh. So, I say softly, does this mean I'm going to write something new soon?

Maybe, she grins.

More than these posts, I proffer.

Her smile is beatific, then she sighs. Just be aware this unexpected joy covers a gamut. All you think you need to do pales to what is most important.

I nod, because I'm pretty sure I know to what she's alluding. Stay the course, I say.

Yup.

I nod as she walks away.

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