%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 Each day feels new, and my memory of the one before is faint. I’m learning to adapt. |
|
In September 2019, a seizure revealed a lime-sized meningioma pressed against my hippocampus—the part of the brain that governs memory and language. The doctors said it was benign, but benign didn’t mean harmless. Surgery removed the tumor, and three days later I opened my eyes to a new reality. I could walk, I could talk, but when I looked at my wife, her name was gone. I called her Precious—the only word I could find. A failure of memory, yet perhaps the truest name of all. Recovery has been less cure than re-calibration. Memory gaps are frequent. Conversations vanish. I had to relearn how to write, letter by halting letter. My days are scaffold by alarms, notes, and calendars. When people ask how I am, I don’t list symptoms or struggles. I simply say, “Seven Degrees Left of Center.” It’s not an answer—it’s who I’ve become. |
| This week I finished a project. That sentence feels a little strange to write, not because it's my first, and not because I think it's the best thing I've ever written. Time and readers will sort that out. It's strange because the moment itself was so ordinary. I uploaded the files, filled in the last few details, clicked the button, and sat back in my chair. That was it. No fireworks. The coffee was still warm. The dog still wanted outside. Life just kept moving. For years I imagined finishing a project would feel bigger than it does. Maybe there would be trumpets. Maybe someone would hand me a trophy. Instead, there was just this quiet satisfaction. It's done. I hadn't realized how much mental space that project had been occupying until it wasn't. Now my mind has started wandering toward the next idea. Not because I'm dissatisfied with this one. That's apparently just how I'm wired. The interesting part is that I'm not wondering whether I can finish another project. A year ago, I probably would have. This morning, the question isn't if. It's what's next? That surprised me. Somewhere along the way, without really noticing, I stopped wondering whether I could finish. I finished this one. Maybe I'll finish the next one, too. |
I took 4 years of writing this blog and wrote a book:
If you have time I hope you find something interesting. |
| I used to think stories came from a single idea. Now I'm fairly certain they come from other stories. A story starts small enough. A pilot crashes on a forgotten moon. Simple. At least it was supposed to be. Then the pilot needed someone to rescue her. The rescuer needed a name. The name needed a history. The history needed a town. The town needed a mechanic's shop. The mechanic's shop needed customers. One customer brought a son. The son met a girl. And suddenly I was writing about teenagers at a dance instead of repairing a spaceship. And suddenly I found myself writing about teenagers at a dance when I was supposed to be repairing a spaceship. Nobody warned me this could happen. Actually, that's not true. Plenty of writers probably warned me. I just assumed they had more self-control than I do. The strange thing about story creep is that it rarely arrives looking dangerous. It arrives looking interesting. A question appears while writing. Who owns the saloon? Seems harmless enough. Then another question follows. How long has she owned it? Then another. What was there before the saloon? Before long, an hour has passed, three pages of notes exist, and the original chapter is still untouched while I investigate a town that doesn't actually exist. My wife occasionally asks what I worked on during the morning. This is a dangerous question. The answer is almost never what I intended to work on. "I was writing the spaceship story." That sounds productive. What actually happened was I spent forty-five minutes deciding where the town gets its water and another thirty minutes determining whether a fictional horse would be stubborn enough to kick a fictional fence. These felt like important discoveries at the time. The problem with story creep is that it disguises itself as progress. To be fair, sometimes it is progress. Stories become richer because of these side roads. Characters become real. Places gain texture. The world starts to feel lived-in instead of assembled. A town isn't a collection of buildings anymore. It's the old widow who remembers when the grain mill burned down. It's the mechanic who still owes money to the banker. It's the teenager trying to impress a girl at a dance. None of those things existed when the story began. Yet somehow they become the details people remember. The trouble comes when every side road starts looking better than the highway. I know this because I have spent considerable time wandering around in my own fictional neighborhoods. I started with one story. Then there was another story connected to the first story. Then, a third story connected to the second. At some point, I stopped building a novel and accidentally founded a small country. There are maps now. Maps should have been a warning sign. Nothing good ever comes from an author saying, "Maybe I'll just draw a quick map." That sentence has probably consumed entire weekends throughout literary history. The truth is, I love story creep. I complain about it, but I love it. Story creep is curiosity refusing to stay inside the lines. It's the moment a story starts pushing back and saying, "There's more here than you thought." The challenge isn't preventing it. The challenge is surviving it. Because eventually there comes a day when all the maps are drawn, all the side characters have names, all the backstories are recorded, and all the interesting questions have been asked. Then the writer faces the terrifying task of finishing the actual book. Which is where I currently find myself. Standing in the middle of a fictional town I never planned to build, surrounded by people who didn't exist when I started, wondering how a simple story became something so much larger. I suppose that's story creep. Or maybe that's just storytelling. Either way, somebody should probably get back to repairing that spaceship. |
| This morning is supposed to be a barbecue triumph. The pork butt has been on the smoker for hours. Family is coming over for lunch. Everything is proceeding according to plan, which in hindsight should have been my first warning. At some point during the night, the smoker decides it has different goals than I do. I discover this when I check the meat and find temperatures that belong more in a refrigerator than a smoker. The pork looks good. It smells good. It is probably composing a persuasive argument for its own survival. Something like, "Come on, man. I've been up all night too." Unfortunately, food safety is one of those areas where "probably" is not a strategy. So here I stand, staring at a perfectly good-looking pork butt that has become a very expensive science experiment. I consult the meat thermometer like it might change its mind. It doesn't change its mind. My wife reads my face the way she always does and delivers her verdict. "We might as well have ham sandwiches." There is a pause. Then I realize she is right. Not about the tragedy. About the solution. While I am still somewhere in the first stage of barbecue grief, she has already arrived at lunch. Family is still coming. People are still going to be hungry. The mission has not changed. Only the menu has. She skips the five stages of loss entirely and goes straight to sandwiches. I genuinely admire that about her. That is when the Duke of Sandwich arrives to save the day. No cape. No fanfare. Just bread, meat, chips, and a complete lack of concern for my barbecue ambitions. He does not offer condolences. He simply shows up with provisions and gets the job done. The Duke is, frankly, a professional. The table is set. And I am standing here realizing something. Nobody is driving across town for a pork butt. They are coming for family. In a couple of hours, someone is going to grab a sandwich and say something that makes everyone laugh. Someone is going to tell a story. A grandkid is going to do something that reminds me why all of this matters in the first place. None of that requires a pork's ass. Most of life isn't about executing the perfect plan. It's about pivoting when the plan fails to combust and finding enough humor to laugh about it later. The smoker is sitting outside thinking about what it's done. We'll have words tomorrow. But right now, lunch is ready, family is on the way, and I cannot wait. The Duke of Sandwich has saved the day. And the best part hasn't even started yet. |
| I have been back from vacation for a few days now, and this morning was the first morning that writing felt somewhat normal again. Apparently my creativity requires a warm-up period. Either that or it was still sitting on a beach chair somewhere in the Bahamas. When I sat down this morning, I thought I had a topic. I was going to write about getting the creative juices flowing again after ten days away from the keyboard. Simple enough. The problem was that every time I started thinking about it, the idea felt a little thin. Not wrong. Just thin. As I poked around looking for something more interesting, I found the deeper water. Family thoughts. Life thoughts. The kind that don't fit neatly into 300 words written before the coffee finishes brewing. I have an appointment with my counselor later today. That realization left me standing in the shallow end, staring at the deep end. The deep end is still there. I can see it. I just don't feel like swimming out there this morning. So instead, I'm writing about warming up after vacation. Which is probably appropriate. Not every morning needs a breakthrough. Sometimes the goal is simply to get the engine started, drink the coffee, and remember where you left the keys. Besides, the coffee finally finished brewing, and that is enough personal growth for one day. |
| I returned from my cruise a little disappointed. That feels strange to admit because nothing actually went wrong. The ship floated. The food was fine. The weather mostly cooperated, at least when it wasn't covered by clouds. Nobody got lost at sea. Still, I came home feeling like something was missing. After thinking about it for a couple of days, I realized I may have expected too much from the trip. I wanted to relax. I wanted to see amazing sights, meet interesting people, and have one of those experiences people talk about for years afterward. Instead, I spent much of the trip trying to figure out how cruising works. It turns out there is a learning curve. By the third day, I finally started to settle down. The constant stimulation stopped feeling overwhelming. I learned where things were. I stopped trying to do everything and started paying attention to what was actually happening around me. That's when a thought occurred to me. This first cruise was teaching me the rules of the game. Once that idea landed, the whole trip looked different. Most things in life work this way. Writing certainly does. When I first started writing, it looked simple. Put words on paper. Tell a story. How hard can it be? Then I discovered point of view, pacing, character arcs, scene structure, dialogue, revision, and a hundred other things nobody mentioned when I opened that first blank page. Suddenly, I realized I wasn't writing a story. I’m learning the rules of the game. The same thing happens with almost everything worth doing. The game doesn't care whether we know the rules. A new writer still pays the penalty for poor pacing. A new cruiser still pays the penalty for unrealistic expectations. Life rarely pauses to explain itself before keeping score. The good news is that learning the rules isn't failure. It's progress. Looking back, maybe my first cruise wasn't supposed to be the perfect vacation. Maybe it was supposed to be a lesson. Now I know a little more about what I enjoy, what I don't, and how to approach the next trip. I already have another cruise planned for September. This time, I won't be showing up as a complete beginner. The first cruise taught me the rules of the game. Now I get to see whether knowing them makes the game more fun. |
un: 
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Community Feed
Puzzle Hub
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Writings
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Sheets
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
Workspaces
