Taking That Pause

My March 2022 vow for the following year had been to do no writing (of a new manuscript) before March 2023 at the earliest. I had wanted to take “a year off” after the three “big” novels since 2017. As I typed “The End” of Capture The Cause, I was tired and felt I had produced a reasonable amount (of I hoped decent reading) in the previous nearly ten years, and had therefore earned a “sabbatical.”

However, if you write you know it is not easy to control one’s thoughts or to simply tell yourself “I won’t write.” With new story/character ideas bouncing around in my head, by the summer I slipped into (I think now prematurely) writing the beginnings of a new novel. But my recent health scare (that fortunately turned out to be a “false alarm”) was an unexpected jolt and during it I resolved to go back to my original plan: I am going to “pause” for a couple more months and have that break. (That decision is I suppose helped by the fact that I have now the start of that next novel already – although I should not have it because I should not have been writing it.)

Partly because of that scare, recent posts I know have been pretty heavy, too. I don’t like to find myself becoming too serious and even a bit “humorless” on here. I always try to remember that there also has to be fun here, too…

[From my Instagram Stories, February 3, 2023.]

When the Mrs was away for several days last week, I took the opportunity to paint a couple of rooms. It was, I found, relaxing in its way. There was no thinking about plot or phraseology, etc., just making sure the tape prep job was done and that the walls were then covered properly. 🙂

On Saturday night, at her suggestion we watched an “old” film: 1993’s The Age of Innocence. It is based on Edith Wharton’s 1920 novel of “upper class” New York society in the 1870s and one of my favorite books…

[Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence. Photo by me, 2020.]

Its “period” setting aside, it is – in very simple terms – about a man marrying one woman while he also loves another. The film follows the novel pretty closely.

[From my Instagram Stories, February 4, 2023.]

The Mrs also took the opportunity at one point to offer an opinion, to which I had to respond: I sure as heck wish I could write a book like that one!

Having gotten that clear CT scan and been given a “clean” bill of health, and with it also finally NOT raining on a weekend for the first time in seemingly a few weekends, yesterday we decided to have a coastal cliff walk:

[View toward Slapton Sands beach (l) and Stoke Fleming village (r). Photo by me, February 5, 2023.]

Every view is different along the southwest’s coast.

Notice, too, no spy balloons are visible…

Uh, you know to what I am referring there, I’m sure. When we think we have seen it all, there is always something else. On the broader world scene, we all know what oddity was big news last week…