A couple of posts ago, I wrote about the electronic loss of one of the books that I am writing.  A 70 page, single-space document it was devastating to me to lose that work.  Being that it is my writing, something that fills me with incredible joy the loss was enough to bring me to my knees.

And it happened again.  This time instead of my fiction book, it was my 14,000 word non-fiction book.  Once again, after spending months on a document and working to bring a vision to life, I lost it all.  One would think that I would be devastated; one would be wrong.

My writing is purposful.  Not to the reader, but for me.  It calms my demons, allows me to put in perspective that which doens’t make sense, and it gives me what little else in this world can – quiet.  Typing, getting my point across, creating and drawing three dimensional characters and ideals allows me to get beyond the voices screaming in my head and brings me the peace to see other beauty, and other greatness.  It is a part of me.

When it happened the first time, to say I was devastated would be inaccurate.  I was literally crushed.  Weeks later I still haven’t picked up that story to continue it.  I don’t know if I can or if I will ever be ready.  So I concentrate on the non-fiction; my determination to help those who are lost in a perspective that maybe will bring a smile or at least a thought they never had.

My writing is so important to me that I literally have a dream room that I visit to write in.  A room with a comfortable chair, shelves filled to the brim with books, and large windows to stare at and perfect my vision.  It is a room that is mine, in my head that I can visit whenever I need to write.  And my need to write is not something that is easily explained; it is a compulsion that lives deep inside my soul.  Honestly, it doesn’t make much sense and I would be a thousands times better off actually cleaning my home.

When this second instance of induced madness happened yesterday, I wondered which of two things would happen.  Would I again, bury myself in a while convinced that fate and the Gods don’t want me to write?  This is the most likely scenario, I am afriad, as it is what I would normally do.  And considering that I have had a really rough and cutting week, it just came as par for the course.

But strangely enough, this second time has me coming out swinging. I don’t know in these spheres of life believe that taking away what I love most is going to cower me.  The first time, yeah, but I had something to fall back upon.  This time, nope.  Ain’t going to happen.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to write those books again.  It doesn’t really work that way for me.  But I sit here, pounding on my computer because I am so mad at those fates, remembering all the stories of authors who were rejected twenty times before they got published.  I am remembering the stories of writers who literally threw away manuscripts and decided to rewrite the whole thing.  They did it because just like me, they have to.  Just like you they have to breathe, but for writers their breath comes from the words that they write.

I wish you could see into my heart write now.  You would see a furious and deepening red that is boiling and moving to the anger I have.  And it is amazing anger; at the fates, at the Gods, at the universe that thinks it can take away one of the few things I count on to find my sanity.

We live in an insane world; you simple can’t get away from that truth. People, especially those that live in their heads, are required by the very defintion of survival to find a way to work around that insanity and not only survive but to make something of themselves.  I don’t mean make themselves famous, or make themselves worthy to a mass population who worships such ridiculousness as Lindsey Lohan and Oprah.  I am talking about making themselves worthy in the most important eye; their own.

My writing is my escape, is my how I define sanity in a world that oftentimes seems to take unholy joy in beating me to a bloody pulp.  My writing, simple words on the paper, not meant to entertain the masses, but to give me peace, does so despite the truths, despite the honest realities of this world.

And today, while I won’t be able to write a word in any of the books I am trying to write, I will find a way to fight back.  While I can’t continue to find pages that maybe lost forever, and I am not yet ready to recreate that which I gave my soul too, I am ready to look at whoever made that decision – whether is was a laughing nymph, or the devil himself – to stop writing.  Maybe I am suppose to learn some ridiculous lesson about backing up my files in triplicate.

What I believe more than anything today, I will write again.  I have to write again.  I will use all this anger and disappointment in that which I hold onto when life gets tough, and simply toss my middle finger up.  I am not looking to be published; I am not looking to be a New York Times bestseller – I am looking for the rest, the quest, and the quiet.  And tomorrow I will find it again.

In the meantime, I will go back to designing and picking out the furniture of my ultimate writing room.