Return from the Blue Ridge

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Nothing makes a six-hour drive go faster than a good book. And, no, I wasn’t reading behind the wheel. This time, Edna Buchanan’s Cold Case Squad on CD picked me up, hooked me in, and the timing was perfect. I started it just after I hit I-40 and I reached Black Mountain, NC, almost halfway through. On the way back, the end came just as I got off the highway in Hermitage.

As much as I love music, I only wanted silence after, to absorb the last of Ms. Buchanan’s words and drink in her craft. After all, I’d just spent four days drinking in the craft, surrounded by writers and creative spirits, those of us whose brains work just a little differently from the rest of the world.

My friend, Eva Marie Everson, a best-selling CBA author who got me onto the faculty at the conference, had warned me that it was one of the best in the nation, and that I’d be exhausted and mentally spent…yet charged…when it was over. She was right, and I’ve been in a bit of a fog since, trying to find ground again.

Going back to work was almost like starting over–I can’t believe how much about our internal process I’d forgotten over those days away, and I walked into a bit of a firestorm, which was a blunt re-awakening to my “day job.” I’ve fought a deep drop in emotion, almost a depressive episode, which is so akin to a “post-project slump” that I’m a bit amazed.

Maybe I shouldn’t be. Life on the mountaintop is exhilirating, even though we can’t live there forever. Still, it has put a touch of kindling to the excitement I’d already felt about the NEXT conference.

On June 8, I head for Amarillo for the Frontiers in Writing conference, where I’ll reconnect with a friend I’ve only seen a few times since college, although we’ve talked on the phone a lot. Sharon and I always had a lot in common, and in the 20+ plus years since college, I thought those commonalities would fall away since we’ve been following vastly different paths in our lives. Oddly, not only have they not…we seem to have more in common than ever. Clearly, a God thing at work.

More later. In the meantime…if you’re a writer and haven’t hit a conference yet…what are you waiting for?

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