BEAT BOOMER BEATS WAY THROUGH WRITER'S BLOCKHEAD

Four days pass and another entry on this blog overdue. Lately I've been battling the urge to give up on the Manning novel. Over the last 15 years, I've started at least 6 lengthy projects only to have them die off at 50 to 150 pages. I'm at the 150 page mark with Manning, and I've had to fight through the urge to stop each day for a week now. My brain tells me it wants to go back to doing algebra problems as it did for 6 years every morning after I retired from Mackay Manufacturing. I was happy enough, slogging through math problems just a few years ago, then I get something published in Work Literary Magazine, and the whole yearning awakes again. 

Homes like this one...

This morning, however, I fought through my drab feelings and wrote anyway. Once I got started, I felt much better. Then the sun came out from behind the clouds, the temps reached into the 50s, and after three solid hours of writing, I put on a light jacket to enjoy an hour and a half walk through a neighborhood of people whose successes have allowed them to own very nice homes. For all my blue collar anger at wealthy Americans, those I meet on my walks in this neighborhood are very friendly and welcoming, even if it's no more than a "howdy" greeting. In fact, both greetings this morning were exactly that: "Howdy!"  

Where do they come from, I ask myself with that greeting.