The HEA Cafe

Home again. I’ve just spent a week with twelve writers at the beach. I slept to the song of the ocean and woke to work until I couldn’t go without coffee a second longer. Then, usually back to work, unless I couldn’t bear to go another second without walking on the beach.

I don’t normally sleep well. I slept a lot–still not all the night through, but more hours. I thought about new stories (and actually started one that taunted me all the way home today).

I wrote and wrote and talked about writing, and learned about new people and enjoyed making new friends. It was almost hard to leave.

Especially the water. I spent two hours yesterday with my feet mostly in the water, saying goodbye to the ocean. I didn’t realize it was two hours, until I finally sensed my frozen face and toes.

Deep down, in the places where I’m nothing except the bits and pieces of raw soul and feeling that form me, the ocean owns me. I feel more peace. I feel brighter, and I feel creative at the beach.

But I had to come home. I have family and a cat and things I have to do. So, here’s my task, to bring that part of me that flowers in sand and ocean and the wind tumbling the clouds with salt–home. To be that happy, peaceful, excited person here, locked on land with my laptop and most of the people I love best.

What is your beach? And how do you manage to live as if you’re there, when you cannot be?

I know because I have a lot of stuff due. A revision that’s not cooperating, a blog today–oh that’s this one–a blog on my own blog–that’s easy–I got pages yesterday so I plan to boast! But the thing I want to talk about is how panic reaches for us as we try to do our best.

I wonder how you react to it? Are you and I the same? Can you feel it out there, reaching for you with long arms–electrified arms? I’m picturing a cross between a squid and a Barbara Cartland-type boa, each feather charged like a taser, because I sure get a jolt every time one soft frond brushes against me.

I’m working every day and night on the revision, but the book was so off the first time that I’m suffering from self-doubt. You’ve met Self-Doubt? Panic’s heinous stepsister? So, I’m writing this couple and I’m trying to fill my own heart with the ache of their need to be together. I see them dancing as I am with Panic, but they get to have a happily ever after if I’m just good enough for them as a writer.

I’m doing the other stuff, too, showing up at the blog, slipping only the occasional note into the notebook I wasn’t supposed to take to the air show the other day, chatting away at dinner last night, even though my only thoughts were for my hero and heroine, who are not aching quite enough yet.

So, what do you do with Self-Doubt and Panic? I’m ignoring doubt. Giving in would be crazy if I intend to reach the happily ever after I need as much as my hero and heroine.

And what do you do with Panic? I’m circling. Occasionally, I give my companion a little shove, without actually acknowledging it’s there, without letting it touch me. We’re dancing, and it’s not pretty, but I have no time for panic. Gotta get to that HEA!