I Retired So Now I Have to Hurry the Hell Up and Write Before it’s Too Late

It’s totally bizarre not to be driving around suburbia knocking on doors for The County anymore. I left in July. And was very busy with family obligations for awhile there. But. But now I just want to become more and more myself until I metamorphosis into a psychedelic butterfly. I was always secretly a psychedelic butterfly. I finished the sixth edit of Don’t Get Burned. The next day I read through the first three chapters really quickly and said, “Woah, Bessie, this is reading for fun, not edit #7. You have to Start Over and Slow Down.” But the fact that I COULD just read three chapters so quickly is heartening. It means I’m almost done! Which I’ve been lamely saying for years. But I AM ALMOST DONE. I REALLY AM. And if I don’t finish this book by July then I am just a sad sack of procrastination that deserves no literary whipped cream. Or whatever. But damn it, I DO deserve literary whipped cream. I have been sick for several days, but maybe tomorrow I will be able to get myself moving. I have to because I am officially OLD. I could die at any moment. Barbara Kingsolver has written a bunch of books and I am barely at 1.75 books. It’s terrifying. For someone who always knew writing was her passion, I’ve had a very poor output. Phoebe, do not shame yourself. Angels Carry the Sun was a really good book. Maybe luck just wasn’t on your side with some things. Luck changes. I keep thinking about that Tom Petty song, “Even the Losers.” It resonates cuz everyone feels like a bunch of losers, lol. I dreamed I accidentally walked off with someone else’s Nobel Prize in Lit, and I was just pressing this medal against my forehead in a state of extreme angst. So silly. There is hope for me yet. Maybe not Nobel Prize hope, but hope. I AM NOT DEAD YET.