A little quiet. A little creativity.

Alone time is good time.

There’s been a lot of chatter and activity here at Johnny HQ lately.

Add to that the frenzy of normal life: stuff with the family, birthdays and anniversaries, summer ending and school beginning …

It’s a lot of noise. A lot going on. A lot to keep track of. A lot of STUFF IN MY HEAD, as it were.

(I imagine you can relate. Modern life is kind of like being sprayed with a firehose sometimes.)

So I’m going to try something to cut through all that noise for a while. Something that turns back the clock a little as far as the art of writing is concerned. You might notice I’m not on social media (I kind of hate social media), but right now my Luddite tendencies want even more distance from the world than just not being on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram.

For a while, I’ve been wanting to go full Walden. Just wanting to get the hell away from it all for a bit and spend some time soaking in being. Being alone. Being with my thoughts and nothing else. Being away from computers. Just BEING.

So I’m going to the woods.

My sister owns property way out in the middle of nowhere. My brother is the place’s caretaker. They’re in a bunch of wooded acreage, far from everything. There’s a small barn. Horses. Goats. Paths to walk and a river and waterfalls. So I’m going to go there for a week, and at the time only my brother will be there.

It’s just going to be the two of us, with nobody around for miles.

He’s always chopping wood and building decks and stuff like that. I’m going to spend the mornings thinking and planning and seeing what comes up creatively. Then we’ll work with our hands in the afternoons and hang out at night. I anticipate a lot of time reading. A lot of time playing the guitar. A lot of QUIET. I’ll bet I find I’m able to do more creative work there than I normally do at home … and still feel like I don’t have enough to do to stave off the boredom.

(“Boredom” is actually the goal, by the way. I love boredom if it’s the right kind. We’re always checking on things and responding to things and keeping ourselves on alert for whatever comes next in the modern world. We’re always waiting for the next internet update or the next email or text. I want to see what happens when those things aren’t options. How well can I just BE WITH MYSELF?)

I think it’s going to be cool. And I think that you, as my readers, will benefit from it with better stories, more coherent purpose, and all the good stuff that comes with taking time to unplug now and again.

Stay tuned.