This is the first thing I have written in six days, and for me, who thinks by typing, that is just crazy. 

I write every day.  I write in my journal every day.  With SDAM it’s the only way I have of keeping some kind of memory of what I have been doing.  I write this blog, and I am deep into writing my fifth book, so how did it happen that I have written nothing other than the bare minimum in my journal for almost a week?  Do I have writer’s block?  Have I run out of things to write about?  I don’t believe so, although on the first day or so of non-writing, my brain was a junky, gelatinous, mess of mush!

You know how, when you have a task that becomes the main focus in your life and you really have very little time or energy to focus on anything else?  And then, when that job is complete and you can relax your brain and body, you just kind of melt into your favourite chair and shut down.  Maybe you’ll pour yourself a celebratory glass of wine, or hit the chocolate – or both!  That’s where I am.  But it’s not writer’s block. 

I’m in distraction mode.  I am doing everything but write.  In fact in these last few days it’s been very rare that I even think about writing – and for someone who thinks by writing, that’s kind of like shutting down all the systems in my head!  I’ve been making bread; jars and jars of mango sauce and now I am focused on making a protein powder from the leaves of the sweet potatoes that are growing in my garden.  I’ve been distracted by a huge monitor lizard that wandered through my garden and his friend the carpet python who has taken up residence in the big mango tree, and the little Willie Wagtail that joins me on my early morning walk around the garden. 

But it is definitely not writers block. 

What it is, is that my book falls into three main sections and the first draft of the first section is complete.  Now I need to re-focus in a slightly different way for section two, and if it is going to be half as ‘interesting’ as section one I really need all my marbles functioning at 100%!

The book is based on a past  life regression and, of course, in that regression the focus was on the life I lived at that time.  I, as Cole, was the main player and I knew what that life looked like from birth to death.  Except that, each day before I start working on this book, I meditate and talk with the characters – and they have been filling out the story.  They have been filling in the gaps and vague places.  And oh boy!  I discovered in chapter six that a character that had died in the original storyline is actually going to be the pivot point for a whole series of books!  Other minor characters have stepped up to greater importance and me – as Cole – have become a bit-player!

In this current lifetime I have Alexithymia – a disconnection to emotion.  It’s a diagnosis that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, because I am actually over-emotional.  I cry at the drop of a hat!

What I have absolutely no idea about – or ability to express – is anger.  I have almost 70 years of anger bottled up inside me, and in section one of this book, three of the five main characters are filled with anger!  And I, guided by those pre-writing, meditation chats with the characters, have been learning how to let rip.

And oh boy!  For the first time in my life I have been able to let go of so much pent up frustration.  I’ve been able to do it a way that is safe, where I am best able to express my thoughts, and where I am not running the risk of upsetting someone else by disagreeing with them.  In arguments, from the earliest childhood, I have been the victim.  I have been without the power to respond.  Without the ability to stand up and say “You are wrong.” Now I am the author.  I write the script, and that is a powerful step forward in my growth and understanding of the challenges brought forward in this lifetime.

And Cole?  He too was the underdog.  The mundane person who moves through life, sometimes in places where another personality type would tread on toes or step on shoulders to make their mark in the world.  And his deeply-buried, well hidden, anger is why it became possible for Atlantis to sink beneath the waves.