It started last weekend, when I decided that it's time to get serious about working on short stories again. Yes, I'm on a writing sabbatical from novels this month, but it just didn't seem right to me to be a writer who isn't writing. Then I had the realization that once upon a time, I worked on short stories between work sessions on my novels, and quit back in 2011-2012 when Blurry and Anywhere But Here were published, and I was working on Splinter. I got sidetracked having to learn about book publishing and promotion, and it seems I let short stories fall to the wayside. It's something I always said I'd get back to, but never really did. So last weekend, I decided that now is the time, and that I need to do something to keep myself accountable to this goal so I don't fall off track again. My solution: join Writing.com again. I was a member there a decade ago, before Twitter and Facebook and Goodreads and the plethora of other social media sites came along in my life, and I really enjoyed it. So I rejoined, and have done a couple of writing exercises this week. It's been mixed reviews. Obviously, I've slipped since it's been so long, and it's going to take some work to get my skill level back up. But I want to do this - and boy have the memories of my early writing days been flooding me as I did it!
That's not all, though. I also ran across a Christopher Pike book that I loved as a teen, and my boss sent me to pick up some stuff from a place that was right next to the apartment where Rick and I lived while we built our home in 2007. And that Smallville theme song in Part 1 of Everworlds was a real blast from the same time as when I was so active on Writing.com. Smallville was the first superhero show that the CW had, and Rick and I loved it.
The funny thing about all of this is that none of my nostalgic moments from the past week have anything specific to do with Christmas. It's been memories of seasons of my past. I usually think about holidays past this time of year and I have had a few memory triggers, but not nearly as many as I usually do. I even had a dream about the house I grew up in, but unlike past years when I've had it, it wasn't about the Christmas tree in the living room. I think it was actually summer, or at least warm. But that might be wishful thinking, because it's been cold and raining lately and these short days are really grinding on me. I hate driving home in the dark.
It's interesting that the nostalgia is more diverse this year, and not just from childhood through my college days. I'm having those blasts from the pasts from early adulthood now too. But I guess that's normal as you get older. The memories build, and you have more to draw from. Or maybe it's my mind trying to tell me to get out of the dark places I've been, and to connect the wisdom I've learned from the past few years to the person I was and the person I'm becoming. Life is settling after some hard knocks, and maybe this is a way for the Spirit to tell me to reconcile my identity for the present and the future.
Maybe that's what holiday nostalgia is about for us all. Because where you've been makes you what you are, and you have to decide what to take forward with you. I think my mind is trying to tell me to take the best forward.
That's all today. Take care, and have a great weekend.
Bye!