As has happened so many times before, I am ashamed of my whiny outburst of before.  I seem to have no middle ground.  I am either profoundly grateful and trusting in Things as They Are or metaphorically shaking my fist at the universe while screaming 'Unfair!'

Have had time, actually in the midst of my panic, to ponder the earlier posts dissing Buddhism and Christianity for 'life is suffering' and 'original sin'.  And there in the midst of tears and snot - because yes I am ashamed to say I did have a howl - a part of me still said, 'Yes'.  Yes to life, yes to drama, yes to fear, Yes to It All.  

Maybe I wouldn't be so sanguine if my life was in actual danger.  Frankly I don't want to find out.

 Wisdom is not mine by default of years.  It's a process I am very much in the process of.

The book comes along.  Thursday was the AITS xmas party.  We drove across the border and had lunch at the Currumbin Life Saving Club.  A favourite place.  Looking north, up the long stretch of wide golden sands and azure sea, are the towering spires of the Gold Coast.  It is far enough away to be beautiful, like the Emerald City.  Maybe the Platinum City as it looks silver in the sunlight and isn't there already a Silver City?  Rocks below the two story restaurant attract cormorants which slide around beneath the waves like black mercury.  They are so sleek and fast and so unutterably graceful.  

So no writing Thursday.  Yesterday was Writers Group.  Meg pointed something out in my book I hadn't noticed which, with a wee bit of tweaking, adds another layer to the story and a character.  Thanks Meg!  Took myself off to lunch at the Crystal Creek Cafe (of fresh water turtle fame) and rewrote some portions to make the layering fit in the book.  

Yes, I'm  still going to 'do' lunch after Writers Group.  I don't live 'high' but I intend to continue to live well and if that means bottle instead of cask wine and lunch out once a week, so be it.  

And it's really true.  The book has written itself almost to the climax.  How exciting!  Haven't a clue how to write the end or what the denouement will be but an end and denouement will certainly come.

And!  Yesterday The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression, arrived.  What a handy book it will be.  Wrote to Tam in my excitement.  Of course she already has it - as well as all the companion books in the series that go with it.

That's another thing.  Tam's book.  I don't think she has any idea how good a writer she is.  I listened to her read her chapter yesterday and thought, damn, I wish I could write like that.  But it's not only that, she has ceased apologizing for her writing.  She's just doing the work.  Something good can come from bad things.  She had a health scare...well she had a heart attack and didn't know it - something which is not uncommon for women - and I think she has decided there's no point in waiting or poopoohing her talent.  Life doesn't wait.  If you have it it in you to do and you want to do it, best give it a go!  And if you haven't already started, do so Now.