I have claimed that I've never missed a deadline here on Free Refills. I think today is a good day to admit that it isn't actually true.
Twice this late spring or early summer, during the deepest stress of my divorce, I had pieces essentially ready to go, needing at most one more read and light revision before they went up, and then simply went to bed, totally forgetting until the next morning that I hadn't published. I remember thinking, "Wow, in case I was wanting to deny the ferocity of stress I'm under..."
Twice I have had a piece pretty much ready to go and then let myself get distracted by a girl. On reflection, this was obviously the correct path.
And recently, there was a night when Jerry and I got to talking, and then got into the whiskey, and I prioritized the fun, the joy, the openness of the release into the immediacy of the moment over getting my writing done.
Every single person in my life with whom I've spoken about the daily publishing has urged me to ease off a little, has said that I seem a bit too rigid, has questioned if the lack of flexibility really serves me. Perhaps interestingly, in each of the above instances, I have forgiven myself readily. The more flexible path has seemed to be the correct one.
And this is why I'm sharing this now, during the time when I'm speaking of the sharpening of tools. I set something about daily publishing down during the run-up to my sabbatical. What I picked up at the start of this piece, I can see as scratched and dinged and well-worn from use. With this piece of writing here, I hone this tool to a new edge. It gleams. Is it the same tool, now to be used in a slightly different way? Or is it a new tool entirely?