Returned

I spent most of last week Underground — which, in my personal mythology, means I was busy being sad and tired and not interested in anything but continuing to be so terribly, terribly sad.

I’ve gotten over that now, thank you. More or less, anyways.

A month or so ago, a friend had an idea. Normally I look at other people’s ideas the same way I look at other people’s children. They’re very nice and all, and some of them are very sweet, but they’re not mine.

I don’t particularly like having people tell me all their ideas, as though I should write them for myself.

“That’s a great idea,” I usually say. “You should write that.”

But this was different, much much different. The biggest difference being that my friend wanted to write with me and, to my surprise, I realized that I wanted to do the same.

So now I’m working on alternating days — even days are for one novel, odd days for the other. Presumably, both projects will be finished at some point. I fill in what little time remains with edits and cleanup on other projects.

Never was really interested in collaborating before. Didn’t have a lot of appeal for me . . . and then, zing!

So now I’m playing the dangerous game of balancing two things in my head at once, trying to keep them both moving.

The nice thing is, across town my most excellent friend is working too. And I get to share in that.

It’s a wonderful feeling, to share ideas and watch them grow together into a new thing with a life of its own.

A really wonderful gift.

(So, as you can see, not quite so sad anymore…)

Time for bed…