I had a post all ready for today… okay, no I didn’t. I had nothing. I’ve been too consumed with my own crap lately to worry about you ‘Ratians. Or is it ‘Rati-ites?

I’m no fun right now. I have "Writer Face" as we used to call it at Judging Amy. I have a lot of junk on my mind, and 96% of it is writing related. But it’s all getting jumbled, convoluted. So, instead of posting some salty, crusty whiny writer thing here, I thought I would dust off one of my more positive posts from INK SLINGER.

See, a long time ago I used to have a weblog of my own. Then I stopped. Sink hole, baby. During Ink Slinger’s brief life, it had a small, but loyal (read: slacker) following, and one of the more popular posts I made was one Sunday morning – this was in the fall of 2005 – when I awoke early, went for a walk, and remembered why it’s so freaking great to be a writer. Here it is, in its original entirety (did I just write "original entirety"??? God, I do have Writer Face).

Sunday Morning Coming Down

Woke up at 5am. 2 days of rain was finally gone but everything was still wet.

I haven’t been up before the sun in a while. Let me qualify – up and outside before the sun. I’ve had plenty of up-before-the-sun moments with small children.

So, I’m walking through my wet neighborhood. And it looks different. Everything looks different just before dawn. Better. I head about a quarter mile south, to a wooded area with a railroad line running through it. Start walking along the tracks watching the eastern sky turn from gray to bronze to orchid and finally blue. Sky blue.

I hear birds singing and think, they really are singing. As if they’re just happy to be birds, I guess. Or happy for the day. I think about my iPod back at the house, realize I’m glad I don’t have it.

I see deer. Three, grazing up on a hill above the tracks. They stop and we all just look at each other for a moment.

I keep going. There’s a ton of stuff running through my mind – my pilot (plot possibilities, character arcs, tone, does the production designer get it, the way it needs to be shot, asking Dweezil to do the music); my book (character, underlying theme, is it really a book?); the short story for Dave and Bryon and whether it sucks; this P.I. I met whose career might make a cool series; another TV series idea I have; and a short story idea that suddenly pops into my head almost fully realized.

And yet, with all that, my mind feels more clear than it has in weeks. Everything is clear and in order. I seamlessly roll from one thought to the next, sometimes one idea giving aide to another. I don’t lose track, don’t get confused. I’m not trying. I’m not forcing it. Just letting it all come to me. The Flow as I’ve called it. I don’t even pull out the pen and pad I always have when I leave my house.

I start heading back west. My Hamilton chronograph says I’ve been out over an hour. Feels like ten minutes. I think about how lucky we are to be writers.

Whether you’re having to struggle through a "day job" that you hate, writing late at night or whenever you can find time, or whether you’re making a fat living off your words, or whether you’re somewhere in between, thank God or Buddha or L. Ron or whatever for smiling down and turning your heart and soul into that of a writer. We’ve been around almost as long as whores and shepherds. And we’ll be here till the very end. By then we may be writing… God knows what we’ll be writing by then, but we’ll be doing it and loving it. And probably still not getting paid enough.

I wanted to get this down in the Bog before I open my WORD doc and go. I love this feeling – just before you begin, when you know it’s going to be one of those great days, where it’s pouring out of you. The Flow.

I imagine it’s like an athlete – just before the gun sounds or the match begins – when they just know that today is going to be one of those days because they’re in the zone, doing whatever it is as fast, as strong or as best they can.

I love writing. I love it when it sucks as much as when I think I’m freaking Steinbeck. As much when it’s not coming as when it’s flowing. I am very, very lucky to do this for a living. Sometimes, especially on the blogosphere, we get so caught up in the business of it. And so much negative shit is written – PODs and vanity presses; "instructors" who have no idea what they’re talking about; who blogged about whom; poseurs; critics; agents; whatever – that we forget.

It’s nice to have Sunday mornings to remind me.

/Guyot