In late December you decided that you would forego writing for a year, and instead put all your writing-related energy into the Bright Lights Book Project. Already, you have had some regrets about this. You miss writing and being in the zone. Also, there is a fair amount of administrative involved with the book project, and administrative is something you abhor. If you had your druthers, you would exclusively sort books. Alas, no one has yet stepped up to the plate and volunteered to take on the more mundane aspects of this project.

And admittedly, you would have time to both orchestrate the book project and write if you weren’t spending so much time riding horses. This, riding the horses is an absolute necessity. This is providing you and them with much needed exercise, and It’s allowing you what you most need right now, time to think. And what are you thinking about? Right now, you are

The cartoon once on every English professors' door

focused on the particulars related to the book project.

You have two nearly completed books, this is a complication. You are waiting for Pete to get them into publishable form.

Today, while riding, on this, a day in which the light was flat (no good for photos), you had a revelation of sorts. You are an essayist, and the things that happen and how you perceive them are the grist for your literary efforts. Some stories come about quickly, and others come about slowly. The essay that you are working on now centers around the Bright Lights Book Project. You did write about your bicycle trek and this was tangentially related to the project, but this, what’s going on now, this will in time be an essay or a book. This is the Life Lived.

You also had a secondary revelation of sorts. This was that you ARE, in writing grants and (soon) articles about the Bright Lights Book Project, actively writing. This has brought to mind the question, is writing writing, or is creative writing (as opposed to technical writing) a higher calling? You used to think that technical writing was what Aristotle called “techne,” which is writing that is primarily factual.

In summation. Ugh. But now you are acknowledging that, well, writing is writing. What’s brought this to mind is your second grant project, which is a request from funds from the Palmer Community Foundation. You initially asked for funds for two bookcases and materials for twelve Little Libraries, then shared what you had written with Pete. This grant project subsequently became a collaborative effort, with Pete hopping on the project bandwagon and giving you a major assist.

Together, you began brainstorming, and in the process revised the grant proposal. What’s so cool about this is that he was more able than you to be specific about the Little Library Building particulars. So, this has now become a collaborative writing (ad)venture.

You also are working on some publicity-related writing, and this will enable you to draw upon your more creative abilities. It is like your favorite New Yorker cartoon, one by George Booth, man in front of a typewriter, surrounded by canines is told by the person behind him “write about dogs.”

Next: 43. 2/12/21: To Rave vs to Gloat