PROGRESS NOTE

"When I am writing, I am in love, and there is not other place I'd rather be."...... Alex Haley

This is the only way I can describe the feeling of being in my zone. This morning, after bringing home my cup of joe from Dunkin D's, where six old black men sit every single morning talking shit, I set about running the dishwater intent upon washing up these dishes and mopping my floor. The old men were talking about today's music and reminiscing about Billie Holliday and the Temptations. They're the cutest old men (I love old people) and my mind started spinning ..... there's a story in there somewhere.....

Suddenly I was in the Zone.

I turned off the dishwater, opened the window, and opened up my prologue. I think I've got it. I think I've got it. I'm in the zone and right about now I'm feeling like Tim Duncan up in that Spurs camp. When you just know you're in that Zone and it's flowing and it's exactly what you want it to be.

It's funny because the epigraph for this novel says something about risk, that all of life is a risk and that if you choose life you choose risk. Kind of like love. If you chose love you chose pain and there's no getting one without having the other. And I was thinking of this and how it pertains to me, it would be that what I'm doing is surely a risk. Right now I should be working. I've got a contract gig and I know I need to be working but I can't help myself. I honestly can't. Writing is what I have to do. Believe me, if I could stop, I would. It's like a drug. I'm called to it the moment I wake up. I need it and when I don't get it, I'm a grouchy ass. I spend money on it, to perfect it. I yearn for it ... not for fame and certainly not for fortune. Like Michael Jordan once said, if I did this for the money than I'd definately qualify right now as the most underpaid person in the world. I've been writing over fifteen years, some things published, some things still waiting for a home. But that's okay. I do it for the love of the game. I know what I'm doing is a risk. Right now, if I tally up all of the time and the money I've spent over the years, I could have easily had an MD or a PhD and certainly an MBA by now. But I read something in Real Simple last night that really summed it up for me. A woman who lives in Ripton, Vermont and holds three different part time gigs says "My philosphy is to work as little as I have to in order to have the life I want.....the important thing is finding out what it is that makes a good day and figuring out what you need to get that." For her it means spending as much time as possible outdoors: gardening in summer, cross-country skiing in winter, driving her daughter to field trips. (She's a single parent). She says about Ripton: "Up here, people are more interested in their quality of life and what fills up their free time than where they're punching a time card." Makes sense to me. But I guess one could say there's a risk to having an approach like that. What kind of retirement will she have to look forward to many years from now? No 401K or pension when you're part time, I suppose. Risky. But then I think about those poor folks at Enron, that hedged their bets on working full time for the man, schlepping off to work everyday, giving their all and sinking their money into the company stock. What did it get them besides another twenty five years working for another man since there's no chance of retiring now.

I dunno.

All I can say is that for me, I'd rather hedge my bets on doing what I love to do. Falling into the Zone for two hours a day, coming out refreshed and renewed. Who knows where the road will lead any of us. The danger, from where I sit, lies in NOT doing what you love and meeting the end of your life with regrets.

So here I am with what I feel is a real solid prologue that only needs one or two more tweaks which I can work on later tonight. Then it's onto my synopsis so I can get the wrinkles in the plot ironed out which will be a major help with the revisions and cutting of unnecessary chapters.

Life is good.

Be well. Be Love(d).

ANGEL