The Hell with Retiring from Writing -- Reb MacRath
In this new year, my life's become a war zone waged upon two fronts:
1) Frantic efforts to pack for the move on August 2 to Tucson, AZ--though I'm recovering painfully from arthroscopic surgery.
2) Speaking of which, I must spend from 7-10 hours a day on rehab, both PT and home recovery. Since I have only until 8/2, when I move, I must make every hour count.
So long for now to the old sense of myself as a practicing writer. My WIP, the final entry in the Seattle BOP mystery series, though drafted remains untranscribed. And a new series set in Tucson calls for more time and thought than I can spare.
How could this be? I'd prepared for this move for a year. Yet here I sat, three weeks away--still at a loss for advanced tricks in moving orchestration. E.g.: I'll arrive by train on August 4 with several boxes of premium stuff, including an inflatable mattress and a collapsible chair. Assorted boxes will arrive by post while the bulk of my stuff will be delivered by mid-August.
Well and good. But what of the things that I'll need on the train and then, right off, when I get there in Tucson? How could I arrange this to hit the ground running? Unexpectedly, and cruelly, this hit me where I'd always lived--in the secure sense of myself as a writer. I hadn't spent a minute this year typing that drafted WIP. What if I couldn't get back to it? What if I'd retired without my even knowing it?
I mean, I'd taken care of the big stuff in champion form: condensing my major belongs into six big plastic bags, a trunk, and a handful of boxes. I'd found an apartment. And, by God, I'd had a fourth knee procedure on July 1. I needed to rally, I thought, not retire--rally on both fronts.
1) Micromanagement came to the rescue. Here's a picture of my Tucson Runway: things I'll need but can't pack yet. They're ready to be boxed with 24 hours notice.
2) And this is Lulu, the Continuous Passive Motion machine that enables me to sit for four one-hour sessions of rigorous knee stretches...complemented by more hours of walking and stretching.
We shall see what we shall see. But of this much I'm convinced:
I got my writing mojo back when I succeeded in giving the boot to that disempowered sense.
This is my report.
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