"I read your blog," Calene told me the other day. This is news. Callie doesn't read my books and doesn't always venture into this space. It goes with the territory. Jerry Seinfeld says his wife doesn't think he's funny. Authors’ wives don't need to read our stuff because we (at least me) download about it verbally all the time.
"What'd you think?"
"It sounded scattered. Like the way you've been acting lately."
Scattered. I didn't know what to make of it. If anyone would know my state of mind, it's Calene. But I didn't press the matter. I was just glad she read something I wrote.
But that little word just won't leave me. I like to present a cohesive front: Husband, Dad, Writer, Coach, National Treasure. Put those five traits together and you've got a superpower. That's the guy I present to the world.
Throw in Caregiver. Dog Lover. Guitar Practicer (what I do each day can hardly be called playing). French Pupil (although Duolingo is mad at me right now for breaking my 247-day learning streak). Trail Runner (though only Monday through Friday when O'Neill Park is empty — not a fan of the weekend crowds). Searcher.
Granted, all of these combined might give the illusion of being scattered. I'm too ADHD to be a Renaissance Man, so juggling these diverse passions doesn't come naturally. I certainly don't feel scattered when I'm pursuing each one. Just obsessed, one at a time. We're all complex in our own ways.
Still, that word: scattered.
When I think of "scattered" I think of the way I feel at the start of a book, when I don't know how to tell the story. Where to begin? First sentence? First word? All those other things I do in daily life are a distraction from the absolute crushing fear that I will never solve those mysteries. Sometimes I go one further, wondering if there's a small possibility I have completely forgotten how to write.
Now, add in my current leap from non-fiction to fiction, which is taking its first tentative steps forward with the completion of a few hundred carefully chosen words.
I read somewhere that we are more prone to remain in a habit because it's comfortable rather than embracing the fear of attempting something new even if the rewards are enormous.
I've said for decades that I don't want to reach my deathbed with a list of books I wish I'd written. Fiction is top of that list. We're not talking about the Great American Novel. Just a made up "once upon a time" that shouldn't be as terrifying as it feels right now.
Coming off the creative high of The Long Run, which is the closest to sex my writing process has ever been, each morning I sit down to write fiction is like wandering into a dense jungle with no apparent way in or out. Somewhere in that jungle are pythons and tigers and quicksand and spiders the size of my head. I have to go alone. At some point I might get stuck in there. Really stuck, which has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with failure.
So, yes. I might be scattered.