I\’m finally coming out of the winter slump. For most of the month of December, I was just off. I ate what I wanted, I hardly wrote a word, I sluffed off. And it was okay. But the problem is that when the locomotive comes to a stop it takes a while to get going again.

You see, I\’m all for rest. Rest is necessary. Sleep, down time, watching an entire Star Trek series, these things are good and in place for a reason. Even the good Lord rested, so we ought to as well. But, as I\’ve learned and continue to learn the hard way, there is a difference between rest and a full stoppage of work, which brings us to my present situation.

When you don\’t exercise or write for a month, the two seem to link almost naturally. Creativity, you see, is a muscle as well and must be used or it is bound to atrophy. In the same way, when I start running again after winter\’s thaw I can barely make it a mile before I want to curl up in the middle of the street and have a peaceful nap to silence the burning of my lungs and overworked muscles. Similarly, I can\’t write more than a paragraph without some kind of mental fatigue or diversionary behavior. Luckily, again like exercise, I was creative enough in the past year that it hasn\’t taken me too long to get the proverbial train moving again. But the sloth is too much weight to carry on again. So I am resolved, this year, to not let winter get the better of me. I\’ll find ways to exercise and write whilst having a nice winter\’s rest and stretch those muscles so that they won\’t turn on me like a dispossessed dog getting back at its negligent owner.