Fuzzy mind

I recently read Terry Brooks' "Lessons from a Writing Life: Sometimes the Magic Works."

It's basically Brooks' "How to be a Writer" book, which it seems every top-selling author is doing nowadays. First, let me say, Brooks is not a favorite author of mine. I've read four or five of his novels, but that's been twenty years ago; his writing was okay, but his plots and worlds were too cliche for my taste. He has talent; he's had to, to survive in the publishing world for 30 years.

Anyway, in the recent book on writing, Brooks' first chapter is titled "I Am Not All Here." He goes on, in the chapter and throughout the book, to talk about how there is a joke in his family about how he is always kind of mentally "gone." He's never fully there, mentally, for his family. He's kind of spaced out, or has what I call fuzzy mind. Apparently this is something he has had nearly all his adult life since he has been a professional writer.

No, he's not a victim of some dreaded disease, or ADD, or anything. He's just a writer. And he often lives in worlds beyond our own.

I got to thinking ... that's me. Ever since I began my trilogy in March 2005, I've felt ... it's odd to describe ... but almost as if I'm floating along in this world, our real world. No matter what I'm doing, no matter how important, a piece of my mind is focused on my trilogy.

Filing my taxes? Thinking about the trilogy.
Laying out pages at work? Thinking about my trilogy.
Sending out a resume for a new job? Thinking about my trilogy.
Having surgery? Thinking about my trilogy.

Thank God I don't have kids, because I would not want to distance myself from them mentally. It's bad enough I never see any friends any more, I hardly think about work and my significant other sometimes informs me I'm clumsy and scatterbrained.

No, I'm not. I'm just not all there.