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Sidelining

I don't know if it's the general happiness of 2026 (compared to last year, anyway), spring about to arrive or just pure intellectual restlessness, but lately I've been missing writing for pleasure. Everything I do in that department is for income, and there's nothing wrong with that, either. One must pay the bills. It's just that I've always enjoyed writing stories for the sake of just writing stories. I have an archive of close to a thousand of them that I've never published.

When I get like this I think about a guy I knew back in the day when I was writing for NY. We met online and I enjoyed talking shop with him so much we were becoming friends. He had a novel planned and it sounded really good, and I intended to help him on his way to publication once he did write it because he was very talented. Then suddenly, just after Hurricane Katrina, he drowned in a boating accident.

I have not written anything outside what I do for the day job in a couple years (disclaimer: I did write a short story last year to channel some anger into a safe for me place, but that's more along the lines of writing as therapy, which I never show to anyone.) I don't want to get into any kind of writing challenge, as I've been down that road before now and it gets exhausting. I am pretty busy with the demands of my life and the day job at the moment, too. I'm also not inclined to put pleasure writing online (like a web novel at one of those sites) or for sale in any way shape or form. I have enough to do with one writing job. That's why I keep trying to talk myself out of this unreasonable yearning, but it's not going away.

To exorcize my demons I've started working a story just before I go to bed at night. At first it was just to get the ideas out of my brain, but I'm really enjoying it now. I've got about four thousand words written, and I'm just adding a little to it as I find time. I don't know what the story will turn out to be, or if I'll ever show it to anyone, but that half-hour or so of writing just for myself is wonderful. Maybe it will work. :)

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