Goood Morning Hank, It's Tuesday.  

So, I've been writing stories fairly consistently since I was about eight years old, so this is a bit of a funny thing to say, but over the last six weeks I re-realised that I really enjoy writing.  

Like, during my semi-secret sabbatical I got a fair amount of writing done, and I loved it, in a way I'd kind of forgotten about.  

So, back in 2003 when I was working on the story that would eventually become Looking for Alaska and Sarah and I were first becoming friends, she introduced me to the old line that 'all writing is re-writing'.  

And this is true in at least two ways, right? 

Like, first off, for me anyway, most of what is good about a story emerges in revision.  Like, I don't think I've ever written a paragraph that didn't need extensive revision, let alone a novel.  

Like, in 2003 I was writing a novel, I guess, but I wasn't writing Looking for Alaska, right, because I deleted, like, 95% of the draft that I wrote in 2003 along the way to writing Looking for Alaska. 

But 'all writing is re-writing' is also true ina more literal way, because even the initial act of writing something down is a kind of re-writing.  You are taking ideas that exist inside of your mind and trying to find language for them.  

And that act of translating ideas into words is, like, revision in its most basic sense - it is a re-visioning of thought into language.  

I really enjoy that process, and when it's working I can enter a kind of flow state where I feel absolutely engrossed, which is a terrible world for a beautiful feeling.  

Sometimes I think that we just want what we don't have, and what I don't have is calm.  

And writing makes me feel calm.  

In the way that puzzling or crafting might.  

And yes, of course, there are many moments of frustration, 'why did I paint myself into this corner?', 'why can't i solve this plot problem?', 'once again, I find myself up against the limits of my own talents', and etcetera.  

But, for me, the engrossed calm more than makes up for those times of frustration.  

But that's the thing I sort of knew about myself before returning to fiction writing.  The thing I had forgotten, is how much I enjoy writing stories even when I'm not writing them.  

Because when I'm working on a story, I have something to think about.  

Like, when I'm going to bed and my thoughts are racing, I am less likely to get stuck on obsessive fears, because I can think about what might happen in the story.  

When I'm driving alone I can listen to podcasts, but I don't need to listen to podcasts, because I don't need to be distracted from my thoughts.  

Instead, I often find that I want to be alone with my thoughts, that I want to let my mind drift around and see what it can find, because I'm thinking about the story.   

Now, to be clear, the vast majority of thoughts I have while letting my mind wander are terrible, like I think of plot solutions that seem brilliant in the moment but are absolutely ridiculous.  

And sometimes I even write these ideas down with, like, no awareness that they're ridiculous, as in the first draft of The Fault in our Star, where a girl and her favourite author team up to. . . take down a drug lord?

I wrote that.  I wrote that scene, and at no point in writing it did I think 'this is stupid'!  [laughs]  

So, it's not like these are high quality thoughts, but they are nonetheless fun thoughts to have. 

And, so, one of the gifts writing stories  gives me, one that I don't get as much from writing non-fiction, is the joy of pure imagination, what in my childhood was known as 'make believe' - I love that phrase so much by the way it feels like an order. 'Make. Believe.' 

So what's happened over the last six weeks? A lot of family stuff, a lot of work, I rehabed my foot, which is now wearing a normal shoe, which is now wearing a normal shoe instead of a boot, even if it isn't totally recovered.

Oh, also I got to spend some minutes filling out the semi-annual Nerdfighteria Census.  

Hank, this was an unusually wonderful census.  

And not only because you included sentences such as 'How do we solve a problem like Waluigi'.  

It's hard to overstate the importance of the census, because it helps us to understand the values and priorities of the community so that hopefully we can reflect those back in our work.  And over the years it has had a huge impact on everything from Crash Course, to our work with Partners in Health.  

So, if you've already filled out the census, thank you, if you haven't there's a link in the Doobly doo.  

Hank, I'll see you on Friday.