I am sitting outside after midnight, lighting my second cigar of the evening (a Rocky Patel Vintage 1990, for those of you who care). I have finally finished revising an overdue short story for a forthcoming anthology I was graciously asked to contribute to. Now I write this, the juices flowing for the first time in several days.
There are a lot of writing projects I have going on—revising the first two books of The Swordbringer being the big one—and I have a lot of life projects as well. Those take precedence, as you can imagine, though making sure I deliver the goods to The Final Home backers is still quite important. Maybe not in the grand scheme of things, but it is to me. I have not felt much joy in anything these days, 2023 getting off to a turbulent start, but I have tried to be productive with my creative work as a means of staving off insanity.
And so I enjoy the unseasonably warm and not-windy New England winter, I smoke, and I write. Now is the time to do it, and there is no better time than now.
This will be short. I have thought lately every time I sit down to write, be it in a ritualistic manner like this, enjoying my favorite vices (tobacco and a small quantity of bourbon), a few minutes between calls, or on lunch breaks, that what you write when you choose to focus and partake in the strange and mystical act of putting words to paper, that what you write now will never be the exact same as when you sit down to write tomorrow.
Luck exists. I think that luck is the single biggest factor in people’s success. Yes, nepotism and being born into a wealth family come close, but luck, the nexus between preparation and opportunity which some less-superstitious folk may prefer to call timing, is The Big One. If you get a chance to write, if inspiration strikes you, or if you just feel compelled to do something, then that is the best time. That is now. In some ways, we make our own luck.
That I’m writing this post at all is a function of now.
It helps that there are actual flesh-and-blood people waiting for me to finish what I am working on. This level of patronage helps compel the act of writing. But even that, even a deadline or a goal, depends on when you choose to settle in and accomplish it. This post would not be the same had I written it before working on my short story, and the short story would not have been the same were I working on that now instead of then. Then becomes now. I admit, that sounded deeper in my head. Maybe I would’ve been a good rock lyricist—if your audience is bombed out of their minds, then everything sounds profound. I know this because I find Black Sabbath’s lyrics interesting and inspiring.
And so, dear reader, now is what you are getting. And now is all you’ve got.
The future exists. It will always exist. But there will come a time when the future exists without you, at least in a physical sense (I’m shelving the religious and spiritual discussions of time and eternity for another day). There may not always be a tomorrow, and tomorrow’s output might not be as wonderful as today’s.
But then again, it might.
So choose your now. I hope it’s now. And with that, I bid you goodnight and look forward to whatever it is you plan to do, whether you did it then, you do it now, or you do it on the next now, which regular folk who don’t sit outside smoking in the middle of the night might call “tomorrow” or, technically speaking, today.
– Alexander
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