I’ve been crossing that fine line between genius and idiocy quite a lot lately. Unfortunately, I feel like I’ve been spending more time on the “idiot” side than the “genius” side.

And it’s seems like God has been hounding me lately with James 4, particularly verses 7 and 8. Perhaps it’s time I listened.

. . . for neglecting the blog these past few weeks. In truth, it feels like I’ve been neglecting a fair number of other things, as well, which means I have fewer interesting things to talk about here. Aside from the inch of snow we got earlier this week, it’s been lovely weather… several days in the high 70s and low 80s, which makes for lovely afternoons reading out on the patio. Unfortunately, I’ve been reading fluff instead of my required school material, but I’m working on changing that. It’s just that fluff is so. . . fluffy.

Most of the 9:30 service’s praise team is on the women’s retreat this weekend, so I’m filling in there before attending our usual service at 11, and then I think we’re having lunch with friends. Hopefully, after a nap, I’ll be in some kind of condition to clean the apartment and finish last week’s laundry….

Now that I’m back in the land of wifi, it’s time for at least a quick update.

1. Had a great time in Ohio with friends and family. My nephew William is just as much of a charmer as I thought, and I’m especially glad I got to meet him. Oh, and my brother got the job! Woohoo!
2. Our neighbors moved while I was gone and were getting rid of some furniture, and Matt also found some sturdy decent-looking bookshelves in the trash area, so I came home to a new look. We’ll need to do a bit of rearranging, but I like it a lot and this means we don’t have such an urgent need for shelf space, which is really wonderful.
3. Had a great meeting with my mentor (who just won two Bram Stoker Awards – woohoo Gary!) while I was in Columbus, and I’m feeling good about the manuscript, which is always nice.
4. My flight got delayed two hours yesterday, but I had a book to read so it wasn’t that bad.
5. I took four books to Ohio, and brought 15 back. Woohoo! Only paid for one of the new ones, a translation of an illustrated 15th century German guide to combat, including dirty rotten tricks. I’m very excited about that one.
6. It’s great to be home.

One of the things I make a point to do when I visit my parents in Ohio is to drive on the country roads at night. It’s not so much to see the sights (after all, how much can you see at night?) as to revisit bits and pieces of the past and, little by little, set them aside and move forward.

Twenty years ago the land for miles around the town where I grew up was farmland. Ten years ago the farms were being sectioned off to be sold as residential lots, and now there’s hardly an open field to be found between the housing subdivisions. But there are areas with big yards and older houses tucked back along the creeks and in clusters of trees. There are long white rail fences and twisting, turning lengths of road where you can flip on your brights and drive for miles without passing another car after dark.

There is something meditative about driving the back roads. Caught between the yellow and white lines, guided by their endless presence and at the same time held off-center, forced to one side of the pavement near the mailboxes that slide past in the night rather than the open security of the middle of the road. Following the sweep of headlights I breathe easier and the cares of the normal world fade into the darkness along with the houses and the trees and the rest of reality.

But there is also melancholy, because I first explored these roads and found comfort in their hypnotic unfurling ribbons as a teenager with far too many thoughts and worries in my head. I slipped along those roads in my dark blue hatchback feeling invisible on more levels than I can remember now, and wondering if that feeling would ever leave. A part of me wishes I could reach back and squeeze my younger self in a hug and whisper that everything will be okay. The other part knows it wasn’t necessary.

So I drive my roads at night. They are my roads because they made me who I am, or at least because they’re the roads I traveled on the journey that is only mine and no one else’s. And I drive them now to remember where I’ve been and where I’m going.

And so I drive my roads at night.

Do you ever sit down for a day at work and wish with everything in you that you could be doing something else? Do you ever feel like you’ve hit a long, slow uphill and even though you know you need to get to the top, you’re starting to wonder if the hill ever ends?

One of my writer friends was talking the other day about some of the ways being a writer is different from being a rock star. You know, rock stars pretty much always get private jets and enough money to buy a house or seven, and people stop them in public and ask for autographs. All of that is pretty much not a part of the writer’s life–unless you’re someone like J. K. Rowling, and let’s face it: when you’ve got more money than Britain’s royal family, it’s like being named an honorary rock star.

But one of the biggest differences is that rock stars get instant feedback on their work. Fantastic guitar solo? The crowd goes wild! Opening bars of a fan favorite song? Crazy screaming and whistling! I’ve gotta tell you, nobody over at my local coffee haunts has ever jumped up and cheered when I typed the period on a particularly fine bit of timeless prose.

And sometimes that lack really screws with my mind. Not that I want crowds of cheering people following me around, per se, but it’s amazing how a little bit of encouragement fuels my desire to jump back in and keep moving up this hill.

I woke up this morning knowing full well that I needed to write. Really, it would be ideal if I could punch out 25 pages today. And here it is, 11:30, and I’m only just now about to get started on that. And I’ve gotta say, I’m about 50 times more excited about the coming afternoon now than I was 45 minutes ago. Want to know why? Because I got an email this morning from my mentor, and in it he said this about my novel:

There have been, in fact, too many times that I’ve gotten so caught up in the story that I forget I’m supposed to be critiquing it. :)

Ha! Whee! Imagine me clapping my hands and bouncing up and down in my chair like a five-year-old who just got her very own pony. One sentence, and it changes my whole outlook on what I’m doing. All of a sudden I’m looking forward to jumping back in and laying down more of this story that has my mentor forgetting his job.

And isn’t that just the best mental place to be when you sit down to work?