THAT COMPULSION

At one point in early April 2025, I: submitted book three of my historical crime fiction series “The Wichita Chronicles”; completed the first draft of book four; and started to outline book five. There could be some people who might consider I was overextending my reach, that I would be best suited to focusing on one project at a time. Those who don’t think that way are other writers.

Now, I don’t know if this is because it is a series and the ideas to connect one story to the next seem to flow more easily after the first two books were published. Is this the same feeling for those writing standalone novels? Or is it simply…. that compulsion?

I know for sure my wife gets several ideas for gardening and landscaping projects simply by gazing out into the backyard. A rock bed. A kind of mulch. Perennials vs. annuals. Bushes and shrubs. I no more castigate her and suggest she slow down than she does with me. You don’t need to work in the same field to share the sense of that compulsion.

There is nothing inherently adverse in this condition, nothing for which psychiatric care or pharmaceuticals would have any degree of impact. These are not garden-variety obsessions (no pun intended!) that impact our lives. Rather they enhance it. They connect us to a greater creative impulse that I believe is within us all but emerges only for the lucky few.

Too many people think such activity is either a waste of time or will yield nothing substantive in the long run. These people have convinced themselves that only the absolutely tangible in life has value. A flower bed with annuals will be a plot of dirt. A fresh-baked loaf of bread will be eaten and gone. Nothing remains.

However, for a period of time, the garden puts forth color and aroma and beauty. The bread is an integral part of a meal. And the books, while they may or may not earn significant money or awards, are the fulfillment of a creative mind putting various resources together to create a holistic entity: a story.

It is because of that compulsion that the mind still churns and the engine keeps rolling along. The end result may not be any more significant than the time and effort it took to create it. The disdain of others is utterly meaningless. We create because we have to.