When I am in the writing mode, my early morning hours are consumed with that process from the moment Bandit leans his head onto my neck from behind me as his subtle method of waking me up, to me coming down from the tower to feed the feral familiars, to my mile walk in the darkness with the Beagle Brothers while looking up at the stars or the moon,
to feeding the BB upon our return and putting out the first round of snacks for Claire and Honey, while it is still dark, so they don’t bang on the glass door demanding their tithe. When I finally take my coffee down into the dungeon and sit before the computer screen, I am anxiously focused on the act of writing that I’m about to engage in. I’m not thinking about the story content, I avoid that like the plague. I don’t want to predispose my mind into following one story line or another. I do think about the last thing I wrote, because I want continuity, but when I finally sit down to write, I just turn myself over to the characters and follow along after them. But everything leading up to the start of the writing process is a blur.
Now when I’m not working on a novel, my mind is free to wander down whatever mental path it wants to. I’ll perform all of those same tasks but be able to focus on and enjoy the moment more. Remember them. I spot more satellites, meteorites and other interesting phenomena in the skies, I’ll hear sounds and spot movements in the shadows around me. I’ll be more cognizant and appreciative of the solitude the nocturnal excursions into the early hours provide me, which I’m enjoying more and more as I get older. There really is a difference between being alone and being lonely.
Now, of course, I’m never really alone. My darling wife is always around during the daylight hours. We take care of our daily obligations of living together. Shopping, cleaning, meals, entertainment, mental and physical, professional and personal. But all of that usually occurs between sunup and sundown. I need only half the sleep Lisa requires, so each morning I leave her to her dreams in our bed and engage those early hours as a solo act.
So, when I’m not working on a project, when I finally do arrive before my computer monitor, I just open all of my social media windows and doom scroll until I see something that interests or amuses me. Quantum physics, esoteric arts like Tarot, UAP Phenomenon and the Law of Attraction, are rabbit hole triggers that feed my creativity. Since I don’t believe there is such a thing as useless knowledge, none of my time is wasted pursuing it. I am often surprised at how some random thing I noticed on social media works its way into my creativity collective only to appear in my writing when I need it.
Sometimes, like this morning, my pursuits are more mundane. I’ll open virtual doors on Apps or programs that have been lining the internet hallways just because I have the time and nothing more pressing to do. For example, today, I clicked on some buttons on my website dashboard that I have never bothered to open before and, after scrolling around, found information about the readers who traffic this website.
I was absolutely shocked to learn that over these past seven days, 597 people from China viewed my website. The US visitors were a distant second at 151. The rest of the world didn’t hit twenty. That was surprising given all of the Cyrillic comments I get to many of my older posts.
However, I learned something of value. Given that I now know I am of interest to a potentially untapped Asian market of approximately 1.5 billion people, all I can say to them is —
读 克莱尔传奇
Which translates into “Read The Claire Saga” in Mandarin.
Well, enough of today’s mental meandering.
You fine, five readers have made it to another magical Friday. Slip in and out of the office with just enough fanfare for others to notice you’ve made your appearance. Then launch into another well-deserved weekend.
不管接下来做什么，让我们把今天过得精彩吧。
Translation – “No matter what else we get up to, let us make today a great one.”
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