Lapse or Relapse?

February to May - over fifteen months without an entry. Talk about a dry patch. Have I been writing at all during this crossing of the desert? Yes. Keep it simple. A revision of my novel, Remise, blog entries in Trainjotting under the moniker of Straphanger Joe, a children's book, and four poems. The novel was the hardest to finish, followed by the poems. Poems are hard - at lesat for me they are. And of course, one of the reasons for crossing the desert, a third agent has come and gone, before the ink was even dry on the contract. But that's a story that will have to wait before it's uncovered. That's called self preservation in the face of typical publishing wacky-ness.

But here's the really interesting part. I've gone seven months without Publishers Weekly. I went through withdrawal for a while - three days of headaches and dry mouth, a runny nose that lasted for a week, followed by craving for short book reviews that made my thumbs twitch wnenever I passed a bookstore.

Why did I quit reading PW? I went to yoga school. Don't laugh. Writer's do all kinds of things to earn money while they are dreaming of hitting it big. In my case yoga school helped me to cope while family members dealt with cancer. It also took my PW fund, and we all know the PW fund is by necessity, large. Funny thing, though - my subscription ran out in July and the weekly issues kept coming through the end of October. Every issue asked me to "come back to the fold" with slightly reduced prices each week. About a month ago I got another letter from them and the yearly price had been reduced to $170. I took it as a sign.

Not long after the arrival of the newest discount, I went to Disneyworld with my son and wife and I brought along the whole month of October with me (not the days, the four issues - stay with me). I hadn't read them. They'd been sitting on a pile of PWs next to my desk collecting dust. I read them quickly on the plane while clouds passed below us, and late at night with my aching feet elevated from walking all over the Magic Kingdom/Epcot/Animal Kingdom, while the giraffes and gazelles and bongos on the savanah outside the window of our balcony at the Animal Kingdom Lodge slept. I'd relapsed smoothly and efficiently. But was it a lapse or a full-blown relapse? I asked my wife on the plane ride home if I could spring for the subscription price one more once. She nodded with a smile. Sometimes you gotta get it out of your system before you can let it back in.

By the way, I'm teaching yoga now also, and making some money at it too - not a lot of course, that wouldn't fit my profile. But as every writer knows, it gives me plenty more things to write about. And the characters I've met in the world of yoga - spiritual ministers of the cosmic soul speak to me - are worthy of some attention. Just wait a minute while I write that last slogan down...