as one of those glorious days in Florida, eighty degrees with scattered galleon clouds. My mini was purring along the 520, riding out to Palm Bay to attend a model railroad session on the Florida East Coast. This is where we run trains as close to the rule book as we can, and you get kudos for doing your job with sharp efficiency.

I was in the beach traffic, passing boats and RVs but everyone was keeping right so the pace was fine. Was thinking about the site and what I’d be blogging. I’ve got another review to ready, Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind. I’ve got an issue on the erotic front – the hosting site is rejecting my submissions without explanation. Last time I had to break the story into chunks and submit in sections to see what their automated issue was – it galls me that they won’t come out and say, “That word is too strong.” So I’m pondering what to do there. And I’ve got a couple of other DOG EARs to put together, just things about this and that.

Oh, and there is the hopeful conclusion to the Solar Trader game my friend and I are playing – we each run a mission and novelize the result. Last time, that was four pages for me. So there is a lot of writing going on.

The moon will be a beauty tonight but I’m going to be writing; no scoping. First thing on the plate will be the train blog, and I’ll work that on the way home, musing off the miles.

Ahead of me is one of those yuppie machines, an FUV of one brand or another, with the insufferable SALT LIFE decal on the window. Now, if you live on a boat in a marina, yes, you live a salt life. If you are an officer on a container ship, plying the oceans with your rectangular mountain of cargo, you live a salt life. But if you live in gated Quail Run, and salt life for you is going beach fishing or surfing every month or so, or maybe dipping the boat in the water every three months and running up and down the intercostal, it’s not really a salt life, is it?

But as I groused over this, I realized that I live an Ink Life.

Yes, I’m always writing something. Projects like Tubitz and Megenstein are buried by a bunch of blog entries, a story correction or two, a resume review, as well as voracious reading and reviewing. Yeah, I’m pretty busy. And I don’t hardly make money at it (what better indication of being a true writer than being broke off it). But over the last twenty years, this has become my life.

So yes, I do this, every day, in and out. If I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing, or nodding at good writing (or grimacing at hacking). I’m thinking about the next story, and perhaps pondering fixes for old rejects. I’m wondering about avenues of pursuit, self-publishing against traditional. And everything I do write, every sentence, I review to see if I’ve just learned some new trick, some clever way of wording or pace or visual appeal that I might use later, elsewhere.

My blood is ink. My fingers are quills. My skin is paper.

If you are a writer, you’ll understand. If not, all this this won’t made an ounce of sense at all.

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