Winter Break

Today begins (begins? it’s noon!) my third day at the McKinney house in Flower Mound. My bed here is not as comfortable as my twin, and the TVs are driving me up the wall a little bit. Here the walls are painted, and the house is full of crap that only accumulates in a house well-lived in. There are four Christmas trees and various nutcrackers and ornaments. There are four people and one dog.

I spent all of summer break in this house, and it was one of the best summers of my life. I learned what it looked like to be a real writer, and how to work even when eight hours produced nothing of substance. I learned to love the written word in this house. I learned to be a writer here.

This winter break, I am learning to rest in this house. It is a much harder lesson for me to learn. Yesterday, I wrote for an hour. It was a big deal because I hadn’t written in so long. Are my eight handwritten pages complete crap? Damn right they are. But I wrote them, and I felt accomplished. Okay, so I spent an hour yesterday writing. Besides that I read, watched 3 episodes of 30Rock and lounged.

I am not a good lounger. I’m a good worker-bee. I’m a good student. I’m a decent writer. But I’m not good at relaxation. I want to fill up every moment with work, and that’s impossible because I have no story direction and I have no agenda.

But today, I will write for another hour. I will dance in the kitchen to the satellite radio and brew coffee to warm myself up and then I will write. I will write because I need to. And I will write so that I can justify the rest of the hours I am awake. Which, let’s face it, will probably only be 14.