If the soaker hose you so carefully set into the garden in April when nothing is growing springs a leak early in its run, the plants near the leak thrive and everything at the back turns to potato chips by July. That’s what’s happened to my writing blog. It’s what’s happening to my novel. My music blog and various activities that are more fun and less work are drinking all the water.

It’s time to repair the hose. It’s time to give the back of the garden the same significance as the front. It’s definitely time to stop torturing this metaphor.

In July, I published a story in Across the Margin. I sent a story to a magazine, and the editor wanted it. The last time I published two or more stories in the same decade was the 1980s, when I was writing science fiction and fantasy. I was happy (and surprised) when Michael Shields, the editor of Across the Margin, asked if the story was still available, then read it and praised it.

I’m unaccustomed to success. I’ve collected enough rejections in my writing life to get a major depressive disorder named after me. What do I do now?

How about plunge back into my novel? How about use this blog to push myself?

That’s the plan then: Write. Simple? We’ll see! In this space I’ll report on my progress and on the books I’m reading that illuminate writing in some way.

The title of this post is not original to me. Here’s the full quote, from 1970s era science fiction writer Arsen Darnay:

Writing, as everyone knows, is simple and fun. The ideas come, you jot them down, and pop the pages in the mail. Three days later, a breathless editor calls to say ‘Yes!’ That in a nutshell is the common experience.