This going-to-work at 1:00 p.m. thing is working well. I can see myself getting into a rhythm eventually: writing in the morning then "working" in the afternoon (as if writing isn't working!). In a way it's like cross-training. When I drive I'm using different mental muscles from when I'm writing.

Another point: When professional writers are queried on the amount of time they write each day, the average (if I recall correctly from all those books on writing on my shelves) is about four hours. After that, their brains go on strike. I know that's about the way it works for me.

Therefore, as soon as this new job starts to become relaxing and routine (it'll take a few weeks) I should begin to reap benefits in both directions (the dough and the flow) at once

Ya know what I'm sayin'?

Awrighty, there are no guarantees. I know this. Who can say for sure the effect of this or that decision? We make choices, believing we're doing what's right; but there's always uncertainty.

"For we know in part, and we prophecy in part."

"We see through a glass darkly."

And other such passages.

But the really cool thing (and this is something I know from long long long long experience) is that even when we choose wrongly in some detail or details of life (we make a wrong career move; we choose a bad church to attend; we decide to hang around with some really negative people for far too long. Etc.) even then, it can all come out all right.

That scripture passage I keep raving about, the end of Romans 8, contains this thought, of course, in that Rock Superstar of scriptures, Romans 8:28, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him."

The preeminent quality we need, according to this passage, is not that we be oh-so-smart and oh-so-wise and just purrrrrfect in all our choices, but...that...we...love...God!!

It's bein' in touch with the Wise One, being in cahoots with the Big Cahuna, having Him for best friend, and dad, and defense attorney--all the while having Him being the one workin' behind the scenes so that we end up, one day, having a role in that great denouement that even Hollywood could never have dreamed up (you know, the one in Revelation 21).

So, having preached myself into a better mood (as it were) I now think I'll be trundling off to brush my teeth, then curl up with a P. D. James mystery from the library. And then after about ten minutes (you can take this to the bank) I will begin feeling drowsy, and then, setting my glasses and book on the table next to the bed, I will begin joyfully sinking deeply into the arms of Morpheus.

(And now you know my Secret to a Good Night's Sleep.)