They Say It's Always Darkest Right Before the Dawn, But I Think It's the Same Amount of Dark All Night

"I hate writing. I love having written."
— Dorothy Parker

It is such a relief to finally put down your pencil (metaphorically) and say, "I'm finished with this manuscript." I'm having fantasies of that moment right now.

Dear readers, yours truly is currently elbows-deep in the deepest part of the river crossing that is Writing the Next Book. Did I mention that it's a cold, swift-moving river?

I actually do enjoy writing, but to be precise I only love certain things about it. Some things I tolerate, and others I can only just barely stand.

Immensely thankful am I for one thing: as an obscure and utterly unknown pseudo-novelist, no one cares what I do next. I take this as a tremendous blessing straight from the literary gods. I have read so many laments by famous writers on this issue. You write a book, then you embark upon a sequel, and suddenly the world is at your doorstep making demands. "More of this," they beg, and "less of that."

But what if that was, in the mind of the author, what the book was really all about? What if that was the whole gosh-darned freaking POINT? What if this was only something included reluctantly and as an afterthought to provide some counterbalance, or to serve some specific narrative purpose?

Well, at least that's one dilemma I do not currently confront. Maybe someday I will be one of those bestselling authors and I'll have to deal with rabid fans littering the Internet with hopes and expectations, but for now I have no hype to live up to — just a river to cross.