Part of the reason why I'm so flummoxed right now is that I always get way off my sleep pattern when I go international. It just kills me that I go to a place like Jordan for 3-4 days and then have my sleep back home go haywire for about 8-10 days. I don't know if it's just me or the nature of the rapid hops back and forth.
A big part of the problem now, though, is the deep immersion in the book. I get thinking so hard that I simply cannot turn off at night.
Today I get up and I need to start the Wilson/FDR section and I'm delaying. Work the garbage, do some cleaning. My AV house guy shows up to load in the new Blu-Ray and does some repairs and asks about prepping for the FBI and I launch into this long soliloquy on U.S. history WRT rules, multinationalism, birthing modern globalization and the coming complexity of nets and how, if I was gearing up for FBI, I'd go for this and that skill set and . . . I realize I'm verbally exploring the section I'm refusing to start writing!
And that sort of concentration is just scary. Not in a bragging sense. It really scares me. Makes me feel like I'm going insane or can't control myself. Honestly, that's why I write books so fast and love the shorter forms: it is too consumptive for me.
That's also why I get along with Steve DeAngelis and Mark Warren so well: both have "occupassions," as one comment recently put it. That's why I trust them so.
As for the upcoming...
1) Article in April issue of Esquire profiling a certain military leader (big 10-page spread)
2) Article in future issue of Good magazine on "top ten reasons why China matters to Americans" (about 5,500 words)
3) review of Parag Khanna's Second World in National Review (I assume the print version--sent them max limit of 2,000 words).
Other than those, just the usual weekly column.
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