During the time I was highly productive as a writer, I was essentially a free agent. Other than work, I had nothing that demanded my time. I could write in the evenings, on weekends, and much of the summer. That was a good thing, as long as you discount the whole I-was-lonely-and-sad part. Well to be more accurate, I was sad first and then lonely later, though I definitely didn't admit that, even to myself. It was only after I met Sarah and my heart felt what it was to not be lonely that I realized how achingly alone I had felt for many years. But I sure did do some good writing. It could be that lonely and sad are perfect conditions for productivity. So I had a prolific writing career, but a woefully incomplete personal life. And then something magical happened. This angel walked into my life. All those sad and lonely days went away, almost literally overnight. And it was at this point when my writing life went from 60 to 0 like I'd just passed a state trooper. I was in that place in life where every waking moment and every waking (and even many sleeping) thought was of this woman who has brought such joy and fulfillment into my life. I'm sure it was in large part because my priority was creating a new life with the people who would eventually become my wife and stepdaughter, but I wondered how much of my lack of interest in writing had to do with the fact that I was just too darn happy. After all, I'm always reading that artists need to be tortured souls. And boy howdy, am I ever not tortured. So now here I am, almost eight months into my honeymoon. Sarah (and Lauren) and I are settling into our new normal. I still closely guard my time with my beloved bride, but I'm somehow beginning to carve out small niches of time to actually write. I'm blogging on a semi-regular basis, though my old pattern of Saturday mornings is simply not good. If we're not busy doing something, hopefully together, we're busy not being busy together. The last thing I want to do on the one morning Sarah doesn't have to get up to go to work is sit clacking away on my keyboard. I'm also actually making slow but steady progress on the novel. It's not like before where I would go to Panera and write for six or seven hours. Abig adjustment I'm making is learning to write in short concentrated bursts rather than dedicating hours at a time to it. Maybe I won't have days of 5000 words or more like I used to. But if I can string together some 5000-word weeks, I'll have a rough draft in a few months. And that is fine with me. So maybe I don't need to be a tortured soul to be a writer. Now, whether I have to be a tortured soul in order to be any darn good, well, that's up to readers to decide.