Writing in the dark

I often write things in my head long before I get anywhere near a keyboard. I don't think I control the process as much as it controls me: Any time, anywhere, the words simply begin to dance.

And so it was this morning, in the pre-dawn darkness, as I lay in bed with the furnace/dog draped over my legs. A column that I had begun to slash out on my laptop before bed last night decided to complete itself. So I got up, grabbed the laptop and its handy dandy gooseneck USB LED light (best $7 I ever spent, btw) and parked myself on the living room couch to finish it off in earnest and send it halfway across the continent.

It's my first piece of beginning-to-end, actual, professional writing that I've done in what seems like an age. I re-read it countless times to ensure it flowed OK and wasn't rife with evidence of my decidedly less-than-focused state. Confident it didn't read like a Swahili-language breakfast restaurant menu, I sent it on its way.

I can't say I enjoyed the process. I still feel overwhelmed with thoughts and feelings that I can't understand, let alone adapt to. I still feel like I've lost my edge, and worse, I've lost one of the most critical members of my audience. But if the show goes on for the proverbial performer, it has to go on for the proverbial writer as well. Write, invoice, live. It goes on...albeit painfully.

One more thing: I wrote and published this piece for Betanews, My father's laptop: A humble machine's simple lesson, last week. I hope you'll take a moment to give it a read and let me know what you think.