Hurricanes and Writing

The last two weeks have not been pleasant. We got sideswiped by Frances. Damage to the house, couple of days without power, water, but the insurance will cover at least some of the damage and it was cosmetic anyway. Didn’t get writing done while it was going on, because — well. I didn’t.

And then Ivan. I’ve been writing while the place where we live sat directly in Ivan’s sights for a week. Getting a little but not a lot done. Where I live — both house and neighborhood — is one of those places that if it ever takes a direct hit from anything worse than a sneeze, will be on the evening news. Aerial shots of utter devastation and dazed survivors picking soggy photographs out of the rubble. The place is cheap, and that has been a good thing for us, but houses built to withstand heavy weather do not come cheap.

Now, with only a couple of days left, half the models track damned Ivan over my roof. Until this morning, the averaged track has had us as a direct freaking hit every single time — so just fifty percent is an improvement. I’m seeing a sliver of hope. Maybe we won�t end up with a house that wouldn’t even make convincing kindling.

The last couple of days, my writing has been at a dead standstill. Something about realizing that you could lose everything you own and have to start over again that doesn’t mesh well with the whole creativity thing. With the possibility of a reprieve, I’m feeling a little more focused. Going to stop looking at the hurricane tracking links on Drudge and Intellicast for a few hours, going to take a deep breath, going to face agent-suggested revisions on Last Girl Dancing and maybe some of my technical reader suggestions, and see if, for a while at least, I can retreat to my own little world. In this particular world, there are no hurricanes.

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