o, I’m not making a reference to my series on erotica – that’s done for now. I’m just writing about, well, writing. And the passion of doing it.

It used to be that I wrote every workday at lunch. It worked well for me, it cleared my head, it made me see angels (and devils). Going back to the cube was so much easier after working the magic of writing, of seeing things first that later readers would marvel and delight over (even if it was only erotica) was a head-kick. There is an angle on writing that is pure therapy.

Well, I’ve now discovered jogging (not all discoveries are good). Since the corporate 5k and all the effort that went into getting ready for that (I could hardly run a quarter mile back then), I’ve been holding to a jogging schedule with some people at work, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Not only is this a gasping agony in the ovens of noon-day Florida, it killed writing.

Writing is now down to twice a week, and that’s at the risk of people asking to do lunch, of birthday outings, of habitat-for-humanity builds. Even back-to-back meetings or lengthy training sessions can kill it. Then I’m left here, wishing I had written and feeling a mix of guilt, anxiety, frustration and pointlessness.

Today I rode the bike in with the tinytop in the saddlebags. It’s Tuesday: no jogging, green light for literacy. And then I saw the crock pots.

Yes, there was a chili cookoff today,  a charity thing where you part with five bucks, get a dollop of liquefied meat, and then sit around for twenty minutes making pointless small talk (alternative: go back to your desk and eat in sulking solitude). I don’t feel good about taking it downstairs to the patio if I’m not buying anything. So, a dilemma.

I was sitting here at 10:50am, my muse a humming nuisance in the back of my mind. I was thinking of what I wanted to write, and suddenly BOOM – the perfect phrase came in for something I was doing. I could see it crisp as a hundred dollar bill, sharp as a spiteful tongue. Writing was now a physical ache for me. So… screw it. I let one group of teamworkers head down, and before the others got up, slipped over to the elevator bank and downshafted myself to the lobby, out to the café, a quick ricebowl order, my own table, tinytop booted, verse flowing. Ahhhhh yessssssss….

So now I’m suffering the blowback. When I came up, there was grousing from the pod area that I hadn’t come. I was rude. I wasn’t supportive to charity. I wasn’t a team player. Whatever.

But I had gotten to write, that sweet elixir. I don’t care what they say about me. I’m drunk on my own prose…

>>>BEFORE THERE WAS SO MUCH DRAMA, I’D WRITTEN THESE TWO BOOKS AT THE BACK TABLE. SEE THE LIMITS OF LUNCHTIME ART. ALL FOR SALE, CHEAP-CHEAP, HERE!<<<