A Beginning in Red

So I'm still waiting for my call, right?
It's supposed to come tomorrow, but I can't help checking the mailbox every day, just in case.
This morning I decide to try writing to keep my mind off things that may or may not arrive this afternoon (which it did not, by the way)...but it's not working out so well. So far all I've got is the start of a very dreary work that begins with the gruesome death of a child...

I clearly need some ice cream.

Or perhaps a therapist.

But the one positive thing that can be said about all this is that it has helped me make some real headway on my book. I'm the type of person who lets her mood control the work that gets done, which is probably not a smart way to live - but it produces the best results in my writing. I can't quite describe the feeling I get when I know that I need to sit down and "bleed" (as Hemingway describes it) but when I'm anxious about something, or anticipating some kind of adventure, or fearful of some change in life, I get this odd numb feeling in my head that just seems to scream "GET TO SOME PAPER QUICK, AND WRITE!"
Sometimes I get a similar feeling that leads to me spending the entire day reading sad literature and sobbing like a baby on my bed.
Or to a day of watching chick flicks.
Or to a day of practicing piano in the dark. (Don't ask me why...I just like the dark).
But the weird thing is I'm not really feeling depressed when I do these things, just numb. I have a hard time focusing on anything else - and when people try to talk to me I respond in a sort of empty, unfeeling way, that most take the wrong way.

I like to call it my 'thinking' mode, because it usually means I'm lost in thought about something or other. It happens a lot in school or in church - where someone will say something that gets me thinking about something both similar and completely unrelated at the same time...but then the teacher will always call on me and I'll look at him/her like a complete idiot and respond with a quite "I don't know."

Seriously though.
Every time.
And then people look at me funny because I don't have anything to say - and usually they can't get me to shut up...


I don't even know if you're still following me here. I probably lost you a while back.

Here - just look at this funny picture of a turtle, and I'll get back to my novel writing.