Fertility Clinic

For the past eight weeks I feel like I've been putting on a writing clinic. For a writer, fertility runs in cycles. As I look back on the past two months (December/January) I see that these eight weeks have been an incredibly fertile period for me. Snow bound, I've now taken stock of my blessings--and the early mornings and late nights I've dedicated to this craft--and have here assembled a short list of writing completed over the past eight weeks. Here are the children I've birthed.

Eight sermons

50+ blog entries

Seven devotions for The Upper Room (two accepted for publication)

20+ poems (two accepted for publication)

2 Columns (published)

Five humor pieces

Three new book proposals

Eight stories including literary, science fiction, mystery/suspense and other

I seem to write better in the winter, I'm more fertile in snow. No distractions (like lawn mowing, gardening, chopping wood). In the winter, I can just turn on a forty-watt bulb in the dark and write.

The only problem is, I seem to produce a lot of depressing stories in winter . . . stories about middle-aged men married to middle-aged women who, in the throes of ice, seem to nag their middle-aged husbands about a trip to Hawaii, say, or middle-aged women who utter remarks that are as cutting as a dull-edged Exacto-knife to the nougat center of the heart, women who, though well-meaning, have difficulty seeing the dedicated servant and hot lover who sleeps next to them every night but, due to circumstances beyond their control, fall into Hamburger Helper patterns of cuisine and, while searching for the meaning of life, discover that they have been married to perfection all along and don't need to search any further by thumbing through Crate and Barrel catalogues or reading Better Homes and Gardens, as they have, right before their very eyes, a rich and exciting man who, from time to time, moves into fits of Don Juan romanticism and saves enough money to rent DVDs and, although he drives a junk car, dreams of a Mercedes and speaks of it often, though, she knows in her heart that he will always drive crap just for her, which is his faint attempt at love and, some evenings, these two look into each other's eyes and say, "Yes! Yes!" to life and to Wheel of Fortune and occasionally fall into each other's arms after taking three shots of NyQuil. These are my winter stories.

Of course, in the Spring I will write uplifting stories about Daffodils and two old farts who, sitting by the fire and drinking Cabernet, whispering their boring dreams to each other before realizing that it is late and they must change the cat litter or anything else I can imagine.