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I’m supposed to be writing for NaNoWriMo. Obviously, I’m not.

That means I should be writing brochure copy or white sheets. Obviously, I’m not.

These things mean I should be querying magazines to reprint my column, or working on a short story to submit to literary magazines, or writing future articles for that column I’m trying to sell everyone. Obviously, I’m not.

What I am doing is decompressing. We’ve been working crazy hours, I’ve been writing every day and sleeping almost never, and I’ve had to shuffle and rearrange my projects so often that I really don’t know what I should be working on. I’m just so tired. I’ve reached a level of fatigue that feels like coming up for air to find that there’s no air, and instead of air there’s only peanut butter. It’s weird and sluggish and doesn’t really give you room to breathe, and it’s so easy to sink back under and take a nap for a month or so when the world gets that thick and heavy. I don’t want to do that, though, because the longer you stay down, the harder it is to get back out, and I kind of have stuff to do, y’know? I mean, I like peanut butter, but damn.

The good news is that out of endless activity comes a steady stream of results.

1. I sold the column to a couple of magazines this week. I’m still querying, still talking to other publications, still keeping a small section of my brain focused on making that work out for me.

2. A new literary magazine I submitted a piece to is officially on sale today. Leaves & Flowers is a literary journal, wherein each piece of nonfiction, fiction, poetry or artwork follows a single prompt. I’m especially excited about this one because it marks the first time I have participated in a project that was conceived and executed by people I only know via the Internet. My friends Caleb Krause and Alicia Lara are both published in this issue (the first), and the journal is edited and published by Bailey Shoemaker Richards. Purchasing yourself a copy is a good way to ensure that there’s a next copy to purchase and that people like me and Ali and Caleb and Bailey have a place to share our work. Because  that’s all any of us really wants.

3. I have a super-awesome giveaway coming up on my site. It involves a writer friend, some autographs, and a few copies of said writer-friend’s (unbelievably entertaining) new book. Stay tuned for that.

4. I’m still in love with my book. I have changed the focus of the story dramatically from when I began working on it, and I feel more comfortable and more satisfied with the idea as a whole. And even though I’m having some sort of weird remorse (and general anxiety about sharing any fiction, since we’re being honest), I refuse to remove any post, including that one. The thing about the Internet is that it is simultaneously more and less permanent than actual life, and people treat this place like some kind of make-believe world where you can do or say whatever you want without consequence. In real life, you can’t take back the things you say. You put your words out there, and even if you spend the rest of forever trying, you can’t claw them back into your mouth and pretend they never existed. The same should go for words you put online; so, even if you’re immobilized with embarrassment over something (say, for instance, a few paragraphs from a book you’re working on) or if you think you’re the baddest mofo who ever graced the innerwebz like that time your stuff was on CNN), you should still have to own all of it. Therefore, the posts all stay, and I try not to think about it.

And that really turned into something unexpected.

I need a nap. And a sandwich.