Sleet Day

Here in the southern part of the United States, we talk about our four seasons: December, January, February, and summer. But we’ve been forced to acknowledge that Arkansas is now in December.

Sleet is descending; the roads are slick; the schools are closed, and the Northwest Arkansas Writers Workshop meeting is cancelled.

Hello, everyone. My name is Greg, and I’m a writer.

Fortunately, the power is still on, so I can sit here typing away, my cat in my lap pulling as much heat from me as he can. But it’s days like today that remind me of the fragility of our twenty-first century world. A little bit of ice, a falling tree limb, or some swirling wind, and we find out how thin the veneer of civilization is.

And yet, when these events come, what I have seen is that the aftermath is more often like Jericho than The Road. Which is to say, we suffer the hit, pull ourselves back together, and get back to building a good world.

And yes, I realize that we’re just having a little sleet, not a zombie apocalypse. But I really hate missing writers group. I must review the steps:

1. We admit that we are powerless to stop writing.

2. We have come to believe that our writing comes from a Power higher than ourselves–the Muses.

3. We started drinking when we couldn’t stop the revelations.

4. We made a searching and fearless inventory of all the manuscripts hidden under our beds for something publishable.

5. We inflicted those manuscripts on anyone who would sit still for even a moment.

6. We objected loudly when anyone pointed out flaws in our writing.

7. We secretly made the changes others recommended, then claimed them for our own.

8. We made a list of everyone who has done us even the slightest wrong.

9. We made all of them characters who suffer bad ends in our stories.

10. We continued to drink, discovering that alcohol comes in many different forms.

11. We finally admitted that the Muses have good ideas, if only we’d get to work on what we’re given.

12. We carried the message of what we’ve written to the whole world, telling everyone to buy our books.

Yup, those are the steps. Happy sleet day, everyone.