IM: Re-Entry. It Ain't Going Well.

Here’s a soul-bearing moment: I’m destroying my new book’s future. And I have no one but myself to blame.

The book has been for two months. During that time, I should have been (and should be) tweeting and blogging and Facebooking and writing op-ed pieces and spreading the word far, wide, and everywhere in between.

And I’m not.

But I’ve figured out why. (Yeah, okay, total Sad Sack am I that it took me this long and four books to figure it out.)

When I’m working on a book, I live in the past. Wherever that book’s topic takes me, that’s where I live. Eighteenth century, nineteenth century, post-World-War-II, pre-World-War-I.

Anyplace but here in Ames, Iowa, in the United States in whatever year it happens to be.

Fine. Dandy. Except when the book is finished and published. Then I’m supposed to shift time zones and live in the present. And I’m here to tell you: The adjustment ain’t easy. The week the book came out, I likened the moment to a crash landing of a space capsule: For seven years, I’d been racing toward earth and on November 12, 2013, the capsule re-entered atmosphere and BAM!, I was back on earth.

The more accurate description is that for seven years I’ve wandered the landscape of the past and now that I’m back in the present, I can’t figure out what to do or even, I’m sorry to say and apologies for the unintentional hyperbole, who I am. I mean, “I” have been living in the past. And now “I” am supposed to start living in the present and, well . . . .

As excuses for laziness, this is probably off-the-charts stupid, to say nothing of whiney and narcissistic. What can I say? I’m all of the above. Alas.

So what I am doing? Nothing. Re-orienting myself to the present. Staring at the sky for hours on end. Not thinking, at least not intentionally.

And not “working.” So, okay. End of soul-bearing. Now that I’ve admitted the problem, I’m presumably on the road to recovery, right? Isn’t that the core of the step programs? (Or whatever they’re called.)

Right. So. I shall now retire to my sky-gazing and wait for brilliant thoughts to come my way. Or, hey, thoughts, period. Something. Anything.

‘Cuz at the moment, I got nuthin.