No One Knows About My Secret Thirty Minutes

05:41 Rain on the window again.

The same window from the piece I just sent out about mornings. I'm looking at the sky I told you about while I write this.

I'm not supposed to let on what I'm stuck on. A ghostwriter should never be stuck. But I am. One article got to me. No matter what I write, the words lie. The one with the pillow. Face down on a Tuesday afternoon, dead but still breathing. I wrote those lines weeks ago for something else, and it's been sitting in my not-ready-to-publish ever since. All the words true, the experience real. But the few articles in that file are pretentious. A lot of dead aphorisms with no real meat on their bones.

Pieces of me, trying to write better.

A terrible sentence you may think, but what clearer way to say it? When I try to write an article that's "good enough," I suffer. The editing doesn't stop. So many of the words get up and walk away from their sentence. Some walk so far the article can't find its way back.

Perhaps I shouldn't admit to that.

I don't know if I'm allowed to write honestly about those afternoons. The ones where nothing happened and my notebook remained empty for another week.

Look at all the time you waste.

But there's only me in the room.

I'm not afraid to say I lost my way. More than once. I'm not afraid to say I'll lose it again. I'm not ashamed to admit I really need a high five in the morning, with an occasional pat on the back to say you're doing great.

I won't get that.

I'm alone on this journey. So those thirty minutes I steal and hide from everyone are like gold. The ones where the world is asleep, the sky wakes, and the seagulls cry over the Jekyll and Hyde ocean tide. They all decide to be my companions.

We will keep this a secret. And try writing again tomorrow.