I don’t have a single thought in my head so I am just going to start writing and see if maybe something emerges. My book-in-progress is calling because my subject is a 90 -year-old civil rights attorney who has had a stroke and we don’t know how much time he has, and I am really close to finishing. Do you think I am possibly afraid to finish? As long as I am not finishing, I have control, but once I stop, it’s gone. I never thought about that before. Wonder if that is a “thing” when you are creating stuff. Anybody else ever get FDS—Foot Dragging Syndrome —near the end? Or maybe it is that I really want to be finished NOW and I also want to take the time for it to be the best and most polished it can be. (Obviously, unlike this post.) So, maybe it is PPS (Ping-ponging Syndrome). And what about the dozen-plus other things I need to do? Including writing a blog post that is interesting and deep. Uh oh. 😳 …And I keep starting things and not finishing and the house is a mess and I am seeing the dreaded DUST BUNNIES and oh lord, if the TV was on, that would gravitational-well me down rabbit holes of mixed metaphors and freeze my brain into a state of Holy-Sh—!-Is-this-really-happening?  I don’t want to go there today. Please, can I just have a day without the world hovering and threatening? How do I just breathe and focus and not start in one direction and jerk to another? Am I waiting for AI to tell me what to do? That might be simpler. This is retirement?  Isn’t it against the rules to feel overwhelmed in retirement? That just seems wrong. Am I going to have to punctuate this? Oh no, it’s going to be late. How do I prioritize? Oh, wait—

My dog wants to me to throw her ball.

Bye ya’ll.

T.K. Thorne is a retired police captain (Birmingham, Alabama), director of City Action Partnership, and an award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction.

 I write about what moves me, following a flight path of curiosity, reflection, and imagination. 

Feel free to explore my website and books while you are here, but if you arrived by way of my blog on Substack, here’s the way back.

If you arrived by way of “The Stiletto Gang,” a fun daily blog by mystery authors, here is your ticket to return or explore.