stepping back from writing

Today, I decided to back away from the once-a-month column I wrote for the local newspaper ... an easy-peasy 650-750 words per month whose difficulty-level once ranked as a 2 or 3 in the writing department.

The interest and willingness seems to have slipped away and I dislike saying I will do something that I really don't much want to do.

Things seem to be heading backwards and I don't like stealing someone else's thunder as a means of enhancing my own noise.

The conflict necessary to any kind of writing ... well, pourquoi ça? Dredging up the conflict is an understandable part of writing, but....

I once asked my mother if she would be willing to be interviewed by a young woman about "The Horizontal Man," an Edgar Allan Poe Award-winning novel she wrote in 1947. We were on the phone and I could hear my mother's reluctance even before she spoke.

Finally, she did: "No," she said, "I'm not sure I remember what it was about."