NO MORE EXCUSES

How many times have I said that to myself over the years? I find myself saying it now, again, as I contemplate the miracle of time opening up ahead of me with no specific obligation. Oh, there are a couple of minor ones, but the taxes are done, the work on our Laguna Beach cottage is finally complete, the remaining distractions are relatively minor ones, and there really are no more excuses.

From what, then, have I been excusing myself? What's the Big One? Obviously, undeniably, it's a return to the not-quite-yet-finished and not-quite-yet abandoned novel on which I worked for a full half-year and which got shelved after the completion of a second--and what I imagined to be the final--full-length draft. Just as I imagined I was done with it, a glaring flaw became unavoidably apparent. I had known all along that it was setting there in the back of my mind as I was writing but I chose not to recognize it because... well, perhaps because I was just too lazy and chose to brush it off in my haste to get the damn thing finished.

So anyway, there it was. There it is. A piece of work that requires a whole lot more time and effort than I have already devoted to it, and I have chosen to let it sit and allow the fear to build.

There is, to be honest, another factor that's at play here: self judgment. Or perhaps instead, or also, the fear of others' judgment. That (significant!) part of me that embraces the teachings of the Buddha raises thorny questions of Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort, Right Everything, when it comes to the novel's dominant theme--human sexuality; and I ask myself why this theme continues to haunt me, even at my now advanced age? Should I not know better?

I do not have an answer to that question, but I know that it contributes to my reluctance to return to what I started. And it occurs to me that to be attached to having an answer is simply one more excuse and that the (significant!) part of me that is a writer will not rest easy if I continue to prevaricate. It's time to find the courage to return to work!