"Ladies And Gentlemen, Can I Please Have Your Attention? I've Just Been Handed An Urgent And Horrifying News Story. I Need All Of You To Stop What You're Doing And Listen. Cannonball!"

I'm going back to regular business hours again here at The Diner.

Many of you are aware that I'd made the decision to devote the time I usually have coffee with the patrons here to work on a book. And I tried.

Really.

I tried.

But that book isn't going to get written anytime soon.

I learned a few things during the attempt, though. And I thought I'd share them with you.

First of all, I care more about my family than I care about writing books. See, if someone with a genetic familial relationship with me walks into a room I care a great deal more about them and what's going on with them than I care about the story I'm writing or paper I'm reading. It's been that way since two-foot tall angels wearing long t-shirts and needing a diaper change walked into the room and I put down my daily miracle and let them crawl into my lap for a thumb-sucking quiet snuggle. My time is limited, like yours, and books can wait. Their days in my home are numbered...and frankly, you need to engage with the kids more in that time you do have when they're teenagers than you did when they were little. And they needed a lot when they were little. The reality is that the book has always been less important than hugs and interaction. The girls will be all moved out in 6 years--give or take a few years--, and books can take a more prominent role then.

Second, I think I got caught up in the hullaballoo about NaNoWriMo because my friends and family were doing it. The thing is, I didn't want to write a novel. I didn't even want to compile essays that could be kind of a Blue Like Jazz thing. I wanted to use the time to put together the book I've been bouncing around in my head for nearly a decade now. If I wanted to do NaNoWriMo I believe I could easily crank out word counts--words are cheap, free and easy for me--and come up with some semblance of a novel to edit later. But that didn't interest me. I was working on a project that was other. Besides, I don't know if I can keep my "inner editor" caged as I write much like a painter paints. I'm pretty sure of what I want on the canvas long before I put the paint on it.

Third, the more I look at Christian publishing the more I don't think I want to be a part of that industry. And you don't even want to get me started on insights into the Christian music industry, either. I've had two conversations within the last month that have me on a personal thinking tour of other ways to serve our Tribe without being a part of "that world." I'm not sure I even want to be associated with Christian publishing. The checks would be nice, though. But that's a crap-shoot at best.

Fourth, everyone was so nice. People would come up to me with encouraging words and solutions to my writer's block and offers of secluded places to write or insights from their experiences that were helpful. I don't think I write very well knowing that others are in the room. They might not know what I was writing but I knew they were out there knowing that I was writing and kind of hoping for some tangible result they could hold later. And, I wanted to deliver. But I find writing to be a more solitary endeavor. I liked it better when nobody really knew I wrote voraciously. And I certainly liked it better when most people thought that all I wrote was this tripe...which, to this day, I have trouble fathoming why nearly 2,000 different folks hit this page every week.

Fifth, if something isn't working, I should try something else. Maybe the discipline of opening The Diner everyday is something that would open the floodgates of wordsmithing. I mean, after 12 days of staring at a blank page, maybe I should try to do both. After doing this pretty much daily for four years and change, I'm guessing that quitting cold-turkey wasn't such a good idea after all. The Diner can be quite a seductress, I've learned. During my days when something would happen my thoughts turned to The Diner and how the patronage would love whatever it was that just happened. And then it would sit on a napkin or scrap of paper waiting for Friday...and by Friday my enthusiasm for what was on the scrap paper wasn't there.

Last, but certainly not least, I kind of missed you folks. We've got kind of a nice thing going here, I think. I dig community in most every form it takes, and when I don't have it I wish I did.

So, there you have it, patrons.

The book is on the back-burner where it's been sitting since 1997. It won't hurt at all if it sits there another decade.

And, The Diner is once again operating under standard operating procedures, as it's been since 2003.

*starts coffee pot and turns the "Yes, We're Open" sign around, unlocks the door, turns on the lights, and looks forward to the patrons stopping by consistently again.*