An Author's Life: Sanity? Insanity? Book Writing Involves Embracing Both

Not to jinx myself, but I might be starting my next book. Or, to step out of denial for a change, I've apparently already started my next book.

Signs that even I cannot ignore include trudging through these (not 14, thank God) Stations of the Book Writing Cross:

• cycling through my ritualized insistence that I'll never ever ever write another book. Years ago, I'd cling to this delusion for at least a year after a book was published. My manuscript for The Social Media Gospel was submitted to Liturgical Press on January 2, 2013 and by January 7, I was ruminating about the next book. 

• rearranging book shelves to reflect emerging realities. Books I've used during the previous book's writing process are either moved to a distant shelf, shipped to friends who might want them, or schlepped to The Book Thing. I then re-populate the bookshelves in my sight line with whatever I'm diving into.

• going to sleep and waking up with words, phrases, sentences demanding attention. Being a visual-kinesthetic learner, I must physically write things down, although to make the world a safer place, I do dictate into Google Keep while driving. Every room in my home becomes littered with scraps of paper on which I've scrawled barely legible notes, most of which I end up throwing out. 

• becoming (more) remote, unavailable, and cranky. I wander around wearing ear plugs, flop onto my bed and stare into middle-distance, read and watch brain candy, announce that I feel, "off." This announcement generates knowing laughter laced with groans from those who know me well.

• wanting to do nothing but write, then taking on extra client work to avoid writing, and then bitching about not having time to write.

• researching and reaching out to possible publishers, even if I know the book is such a niche title that I'll have to self-publish (e.g., Come to the Table: A Passover Seder for Parish Use and Getting #Married:Using Social Media to Celebrate the Sacred.)

• playing around with working titles that are destined to change. I've already tallied votes for what I believe is a keeper title for my memoir-ish exploration of something I've been involved with since childhood.

So, dear readers, now you know what's currently happening in this author's life. What's that? You want to know the title?

Here it is: Death: A Love Story. 

Details to come...in this lifetime.