The Laaaaast Womaaaaan on Eaaaarth!!!

Oh you guys.  I haven't shown up here in a long while, on the blog.

Because I've been writing two books.

At the same time.

And they are both due to the publishers any minute.

I've been spending almost all of my work hours hunched over my computer making sentences, fixing them, fixing them again, checking references, looking things up, feeling all squinchy and focused.  I get home from the office and am barely able to form sentences.  My children seem like aliens, my husband a stranger.  It takes me an hour just to resume human form, to reconnect to a life lived off the page.

I feel like I am in a dark cave.  It's cozy in here, and deeply fulfilling--even joyful--in a lot of ways.  I'm proud of myself, and my co-authors, and the work.  But really I am in here by myself, in the dark, until these things are done.   Mornings:  coffee, work out, sit butt in chair, write.  And at the end of the day, all I have energy for is to take the dogs for a walk, watch an episode of Mad Men, and pass out into the deepest sleeps I've ever had.

Occasionally I take a peek at what you guys are doing on Facebook and notice that big, important things are happening, and also sweet, small things, and then I quickly close the browser because my brain cannot even be in that space right now.  There is no bandwidth left for imagining what other people are doing, or commiserating, or connecting, or keeping up.  I know it's summer and I know we have taken trips and will take more, and that we have friends, and interests, and that something called "boredom" exists somewhere, and that someday life will resume, but I can't remember anything other than sitting in front of this screen, and I can't imagine anything beyond it, either.

It's possible I'll come out of the cave and you'll all be gone.  The whole world will have been a dream, and the only real thing the words I tapped, tapped, tapped out on this laptop.  I'll be the last woman standing, and all that will be left for me to read is my own two books.

Lord, I hope not.  I hope you'll all remember who I am when I come back.  Please keep an eye out for me.

So I haven't been writing here, because I've been writing there.  I've used up all my words.  And I'm not living any interesting stories to tell, anyway.

But I'll come back.  I'm almost done.

Look out.