On Writing--Or Not

I am not writing right now. I cannot express how much this pains me; the writers among you will understand. It's not that I'm *blocked* or that I don't know what to write--it's that I can't find the time. I'm in a crunch period that began about two weeks ago and is likely to run two more, and I don't even have time to make dinner consistently or return phone calls not related to work (and I'm really sorry about that, btw. You know who you are.)

It's work, of course. The beautiful business of publishing. I am still the person responsible for most everything Mercury Retrograde does, and I don't want to complain about that: this is my brainchild, and I love the work. Well, except the filing and bookkeeping. In case you haven't heard, we have a book scheduled for official release on October 1st, and we are busily finalizing final things, scheduling Larissa's book tour, and doing truckloads of publicity. All very important and enjoyable stuff, and in many cases the first time I've done the things in question--which means there have been false starts and mid-course corrections, and just generally that things have taken longer than they will for the next book and the one after that. I understand all this, and it's not so hard to be philosophical about it, because I love the work.

But just the same there is a certain defrocked wizard on the verge of getting sucked into things it will take him years to fully understand, waiting for me in the study...and I know exactly what the next hundred pages should be. It's hard to be patient.

Must dig in and make the final push, down here in the office. Soon there will be things to read and see: a book, details of an author tour, a new Mercury Retrograde website, Mercury Retrograde's close-to-finalized catalog for next year. Right now it's insanity on the inside and pretty boring from outside. I'll be back in the study soon.