Life has been hectic lately. My job is running me ragged. Long days. And I've been having trouble sleeping because I haven't been exercising as much as usual, and I've been eating too many bad foods in larger than normal quantities.

But ... there's something else ...

This is the thing with writers. Writing is inside. Writing happens whether or not we have the time, inclination, discipline to sit our asses down at the computer. When it happens, it's good.

When it doesn't happen...

I dunno. For me, my mind gets cloudy and muddled. I don't think straight. I get tired. Crabby. Sad for no reason. I worry about my son.

I need to write. I figured that out tonight as I sat at my Writer's Group and I read Jenny's chapter, which was really good. I regretted that I didn't bring a new chapter. It occurred to me that I haven't done any kind of "mind dump" in too many days.

That's what writing is sometimes. It's not always producing fiction that with any luck will be coherent and interesting, but sometimes. It's not trying to make heads or tails of some past event, but sometimes. It's not always about recording the events of my life, so I can go back and relive them when I am older and (God willing) wiser.

Writing is all of the above and more.

But writing is also a way of dumping my overactive mind, which imagines way too much. And I haven't done enough of that.

Right now, I am signed onto work, waiting for some jobs to run which may abend. This is so I am not rudely awakened by my pager. Sienfeld is on. The house is quiet.

Already this little bit of writing has helped. I feel better. A little.