CatchReleaseCoverA week or so ago I started a short story, and I put in a few hours here and there, and it’s coming along well enough. I figure another week or two should see it through to the end.

But it seems to have hit…well, not exactly a snag, but for the past few days I’ve been sitting down at my desk first thing each morning, whereupon I open the file and look at the story, and then I go and Do Other Things. All of this, I have learned over the years, is part of what we like to call the Creative Process. The subconscious is busy mulling things over, and in due time the results will show up on the computer screen.

But not just yet…

Today, for example, I opened the file and promptly closed the file, and then I cleared a ton of email, tended to my tweeting and facebooking, updated my agent on an editing project that’s in the works, booked a phone conversation with another party to discuss that project, and came up with a couple of good ideas for additional projects. And in the course of all of this, I came to a seminal conclusion.

A conclusion I’ll happily share with you: Nothing so spurs one’s creative energy as the need to avoid essential work. In fact I suspect most of the world’s most important work has been done by people who’ve had other things they know in their hearts they really ought to be doing.

Why else, really, would I clean the crud out from between the keys of my computer keyboard? Or arrange my books in alphabetical order?

Or write blog posts like this one?

Well, not all the work that gets done this way is useful or important, as you can see. But it’s my pleasure to share it with you. And, in order to better justify it to myself, and to deftly split an infinitive, I’ll add these useful links which will enable you, wherever you may be, to waste some time with the eBook or paperback of Catch and Release in what I trust will be a pleasant and perhaps even useful fashion:

Amazon.com Barnes & Noble Smashwords Kobo

United Kingdom France Germany Brazil Mexico Spain Japan Italy India Canada

Look at that, will you? Aren’t you impressed that you can order this wonderful book almost anywhere in the world? And do you have any idea how much time it takes to gather up and post all those links?

You can thank me later…

LB