Olivia. Photo by me.

Back in the spring, as I approached the end of my 100-day challenge, I wrote this:

There’s a part of me that’s scared that if I stop writing every day, I’ll lose my momentum and the story will fade from my imagination. I want to believe that a hundred consecutive days of writing will protect it, but I’m not certain. . . . I’m afraid to take my hands off the wheel for fear the story will stall out.

Turns out, I was right.

I kept writing 1,000 words each day for nearly two weeks past my challenge date. Then one night, I gave myself a break. I was entitled, I thought. I was tired. I needed to pause the writing, to organize what I had so I could figure out what I still needed. I’d been writing in chunks, and I took some time to move the chunks to Scrivener so I could arrange and rearrange them in some sort of order.

This was good and helpful work, or at least it felt productive at the time. Shifting from creating to organizing helped me to discern what existed and where the gaps were. Next, I would sit down and explore the existing work to figure out how to fill those gaps.

At least, that was the plan.

Instead, I simply stopped writing. In August, I wrote a couple of cat biographies and not much else. September hasn’t been any better: other than a few notes in my purple notebook, I’ve barely touched my book. Obviously, I haven’t been filling the gaps writing blog posts.

So what’s going on?

Here’s one theory: when I was doing the 1,000-word challenge, I had a routine. I didn’t have to think about it—I just did it. Then, when I departed from the routine, I told myself I just needed a short rest. I figured I’d be back in the groove by mid-August at the latest. Now, here I am, in mid-September (except that calling the 23rd “mid-September” is sort of like calling someone who’s 61 “middle-aged”: it may be technically accurate, but we all know what’s really going on), and while all the other kids have gone back to school, I’m still on summer vacation.

Except, of course, that I never really got a vacation. Not for the self-employed a blissful two-week getaway at a rented house on the Cape, especially when the self-employed person is the only wage-earner in the household and also shares responsibility for elder parent care. Work slowed down in August, but there was never an actual block of days when all I did was relax.

As always happens in September, day-job work has ramped up, which is a good thing, as it will pay for the summer dental work and car repairs, but it’s not so helpful if I’m trying to conserve brain power for writing. The non-day-job schedule is also heating up: over the next eight days, I have commitments every evening, including Mom-care (two nights), Bible study (two nights), seminars about Medicare and Social Security (two nights), a church event, and a talk at the Connecticut Forum by author Suleika Jaouad and her husband, musician Jon Batiste about “music, resilience, and living a creative life.”

Granted, I could skip at least some of these commitments, but the ones I could most easily cancel—Bible study, Connecticut Forum—are the ones that do the most to feed my soul. The church event is the celebration of our priest’s formal installation as rector, and I want to join that celebration—plus I’ve already agreed to usher at the ceremony and bring ice cream for the reception. (Hint to people like me, who tend to back out at the last minute: if you volunteer to bring or do something, it’s a lot harder to blow off the event.) As for the seminars, I need them—not only are they free and convenient (at the town library), but the timing is perfect since I’m only a few months from my 65th birthday. The Mom-care is non-negotiable, especially since her caregiver is taking off this Friday evening and I’m the only one in a position to fill in. Squeezed in between the day and night commitments is the rush to schedule holiday book events. So, no breaks here, at least not for the foreseeable future.

Last weekend I spent a couple hours doing yard work. My plan was that this weekend, I’d pick up where I left off. Instead, after I slept far too late, Saturday afternoon found me in the recliner, reading a book that does not contribute in any way to my writing, my work, or any other part of my life. Late in the afternoon, when there was still time before sunset to put down the book and pull some weeds, Olivia hopped up in the chair beside me. As I petted her, she purred. After a few minutes, I took a video of her purring. I posted it on my social media feeds with these words:

*****It’s after 4:00 on a Saturday. I was going to do yard work, but then Olivia hopped up into my chair.Olivia is 16-1/2 years old. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s this: don’t waste the purrs.Someday, there will be no more purrs. Someday, you will have only a snippet of fur, a plaster paw print, and a tin of ashes.You can do the yard work then. For now, cherish the purrs. They will not last forever. Don’t waste them.*****

Probably the most creative, true lines I’ve written in weeks.

I never did get to the yard work this weekend, but I reassured myself that the urge to create is still alive.

Usually, at the end of a draft, I step away from the manuscript for a few weeks. I suppose it’s possible that this is effectively what I’ve been doing since July. The problem is that I don’t think that what currently exists is a draft—or is it? Is it a draft when it has three different beginnings and huge holes and no discernible ending? When the resolution of the conflicts is nothing more than a misty image in my brain, with no ideas about where it is or how it came to be and no words to translate it to the page?

Rationally, I know how to fix these problems: write the words. Write the words without regard for how good or bad they are or how accurately they transcribe the thoughts that flitter through my brain like hummingbirds, hovering for a moment and then darting away. Just write. Put words on the page. Not necessarily a thousand words, because there comes a point when quantity is not the answer, and I suspect that with 110K words in the bank, I’ve reached that point. Maybe slower, more thoughtful writing, striving for an accurate telling of a specific moment instead of simply snatching any idea that passes and slamming it onto the page.

I need to return to the regularity of daily writing, even if only for a few true lines each day. In this time when I feel as if I have zero discipline so that I stay up into the wee hours watching the Halloween Baking Challenge, and then I sleep far too late while the rest of the world labors and the sun shines on these ever-shortening days, the notion of doing something simple and meaningful every single day feels both doable and important.

Another lovely autumn afternoon passed as I wrote. Now, the cats doze around me. I’ve taken a tentative step back toward my daily writing practice.

It’s a start again.