Already “at
it” in a new year, I’d like to share some of the directions the journey we call
life seems to be taking me. In
discussing my thoughts early in 2022 and what I might likely pursue, I would
prefer “challenges” to the more prosaic “resolutions.” I’m promising nothing as
I lean into the year and its possibilities. Broadly speaking, my thoughts are
imbued with and channeled by a sense of responsibility threading self, family,
neighborhood, country, world. I hope to return to these challenges next time
(and perhaps a time after that), but this time I’d like to focus on how early
thinking is impacting my sense of self. More specifically, I’m considering the
reality (to some extent) of age-determined aims, notably any activity partially
affected by physical well-being. At this moment, to my knowledge, I’m in good
health.
The move to
Virginia from North Carolina in 2017, an age-related consideration, deracinated
me from writing “roots,” e.g. clubs, associations, informal groups, kindred
individuals at whose tables I found brain nourishment. The cost: at least some
loss of ferment. The loss has been heightened by my hesitation to reinvest in
similar contacts here. I tell myself the hesitation relates to the time and
responsibility required to re-associate myself. Age related? Possibly.
Awareness of time shapes decisions. Part of being responsible, a promise has to
be kept.
All that said,
I have noticed changes in my writing life that I suspect relate, somehow, to
aging. I seem to be letting stories come to me more now whereas up to the last
year of two, I actively sought them. I also spend more time than in the past on
pre-writing thought, editing, revision, and research.
I still read
selectively, interspersing fiction and non. Within fiction, I still mix genre
with literary, probably on a ratio of two or three to one. Within non-fiction,
while my interest still feels protean, I suspect the range has narrowed
slightly. A factor of time left? I suspect so. Then too, it also appears
there’s a quantitative lessening as well. For decades, I averaged reading
eighty to ninety books per year, occasionally more. Now the average appears
roughly to be sixty to seventy, possibly fewer. Am I enjoying reading less?
Heck no! If anything, quite the opposite; I continue to treasure the endless
pleasure a good book offers. Perhaps I’m less driven to pack away knowledge and
more open to the rhythms of optimal absorption. That’s just a guess.
Back to writing, please don’t
misunderstand; I still write, engaging in some aspect of the writing process
almost every day. I recently completed the first draft of the fourth novel in
the Quarry crime series. I’ve also been reviewing earlier work that, for
various reasons, I’ve allowed to lie dormant. The writing goes on! It’s what we
do, right?
