So much to do, so much to say, but not all of it right now...

A week ago today, I was headed to Arizona for the Tucson Festival of Books, hands down the best festival experience I've had in my career. But this ain't about that (I'm saving it for the newsletter, and you should subscribe if you don't already).

This is about something I came across in my decompression from travel and a little head cold I brought home with me.

I'm listening to the album Chappaquiddick Skyline, which I've known note by note for more than 20 years but only recently bought in vinyl. It's almost a whole new sonic experience. And as I perused the liner notes by Joe Pernice, I was struck by what he had to say from the vantage point of two decades on from making the album:

The haphazardly circled part there—sorry, kids, but my hands aren't so steady now, even less so with a mouse—is, to me, just about the most on-point description of the creative sweet spot as I've ever read. I don't know squat about making records or painting frescoes; those art forms are for my enjoyment and enrichment, not my indulgence as a practitioner. But I know a thing or two about creative writing and what it feels like when the work sings. I wish I knew more about how to make that happen, again and again, but I suppose the game lies in chasing it, sometimes coming up short, and occasionally capturing it.

​Which brings me to Jane...

Jane, Divided, which I read one final time in the past week, sings. She does. I'm fairly flabbergasted, because I spent 10 years writing her, and those 10 years brought profound changes to my life and, I presume, to the manuscript I kept returning to. Somehow, I kept the beat with her.

This isn't to say she'll be a hit. She probably won't. She'll be widely available* but not widely known, a byproduct of the limitations brought on by her small-press launch. But she'll be out there, and discoverability can be forever. I'll give her the best push I can. I'll be proud of her, always. I'm proud of everything I've put out there, my one hedge against the vagaries of popularity, interest, critical esteem, apathy, etc.

And for the rest of my days, I'll be able to look at her and say, "You know what? Sometimes, you find the vibe. And it feels awfully good when you do."

*—paperback, ebook, audiobook. Details coming soon. Hang in there.

Interestingly enough, it was a conversation at my job that got me to thinking about fine art, even though those words—"fine" and "art"—never came up when my colleagues and I were batting around the notion of work-life balance and what it really means to each of us.

I'm always doing this, by the way. I'm always rocketing off from one topic to another, with little connective tissue, as my mind stretches one thing into another. This elasticity largely serves me well—the entirety of my career as a fiction writer can pretty much be accredited to this tendency (or this tendency can be blamed, depending on your view of things)—but I sometimes end up in choppy waters when I blurt out where my head goes without giving the person I'm talking to some kind of road map.

So here, in the confines of this little blast of words, I'll try to reconstruct how one thing led to another. "Work-life balance," to me, is a moving target, subject to the tides of age, interests, location, current events, etc. When I was in my twenties and never turned myself off from my career, I thought I was supremely balanced. I worked, I slept, and I road-tripped in almost perfect proportions. (I also moved a lot, having not yet figured out that wherever you go, there you are.)

Thirty years down the line, I'm a different guy. I turn off work—my job, my writing, the many other things I do to make a buck—when it's time to step away. I'm not idle, though. I rarely watch TV. On evenings and weekends, I'm reading, or having lunch with friends, or exploring, or attending events. Sometimes, all of that.

This is where fine art comes in. I have, in all surprise to myself, become a collector of paintings. Not an investor; I'm not buying low and selling high. I'm buying and holding, forevermore. I'm dressing my walls with work that moves me emotionally, intellectually, and aesthetically. I'm learning everything I can about the creators of the works I buy—how they work, how they think, what moves them, why they answer the call.

I'm learning what I like and don't like, what speaks to me and what doesn't. I'm learning to articulate those things, lacking any sort of background in technique or criticism. I look for beautiful things. The definition of "beautiful"? That's all on me. I'm figuring it out as I go.

So here's the thing: When I was a younger man, paintings didn't interest me in the least. I'm not sure why, except that I was always in such a hurry to get to the next thing that I never stood in front of one long enough to let it sink into me.

Is it age, a moderating temperament, a need to stand in silence for a while, something that would have rattled me in those days when I equated frenetic activity with being alive? I'm not sure. What I do know is that it's a loud world getting louder, and so many of the people populating it are moving through their lives with their attentions divided, as if their brains are spread out over eight dozen browser tabs. I'm not above that. All too often, I'm right there with them.

Art is my shelter from that, a place I can slip into and let my thoughts settle. No pleasure these days is richer than the one that comes from standing in front of a painting and letting it work me over.

​I wasn't always in this place. But I'm here now. Balance has been redefined.

I also know this: Putting up art in the the place where I create has a real, if immeasurable, effect on my work. It opens the creative pores, if you will. I want to contribute to a world that, amid its many horrors and bafflements, also contains such beauty. It makes me want to be better at what I do, not for aggrandizement or fame or riches, but because I can think of no higher calling than to brighten the corners of dark places with art.

Not a bad way to find balance, eh?