I stepped into my closet tonight and my brain just locked up. It said, “No.” I clicked on my fiction blog and again, “No.” But I can’t quite bring myself to listen so here I am. But I realized that I’ve been writing every night for at least fifteen nights–some of those nights creating art as well (not instead of but also)–and it has been great. I’ve walked through my days gleeful at the thought of what I put down on the page (words and color) but now I feel as if my creative brain has wrenched free from me and jumped off a cliff.

And the rest of me is on my stomach looking over the side at the splat–and it is a mess. There are the two birthdays forgotten, the baby shower, the thank you note, the father’s day, the graded papers, and the syllabi (I’m so late with that I think my boss may have forgotten too). All of it soaked right into the birthday party scene I wrote, the long lost son reunion scene, the funeral scene, the new boyfriend scene, and the blog entries.

This blog might be in part what it means to be Catholic (lapsed, disavowed, or whatever)–I now have a place to confess. So writerly dramatic! But those who will insist on making their lives from their imagination will create drama somewhere…

I think I need some kind of writer detox. Or perhaps a better phrase would be that I need a writer replenishment. And it’s got to be more than sleep, because in my sleep I’ve started dreaming my novel. The other day I took a nap and I really believed I was in bed for a few minutes thinking about a name for a new character. It took me a while to realize I’d been asleep for an hour. Sound asleep dreaming of thinking! See, and now I have to write about it too.

Of course, I could avoid all writing and art for a week. Well, a few days. Okay, one day. But that idea is rather painful. Of course, feeling the crash is no fun either. This must be why so many writers drink, drug, and sleep around. Pity I don’t do any of them.