Yes and so

Progress at work, progress in weight loss, progress in writing. What more can I ask for? Not a lot. Don't be greedy or look a gift hoss in the mouth...or get too dragged down with cliches.

The best part of writing is being creative. However, there's another part of it that is nearly equally as rewarding. Escape. Writing, fiction of course, provides a great way to jump to another place or another time or another galaxy and leave things behind for a while. One can live vicariously through one's characters. One can have them do the things one wishes and isn't able, or fears to even try. One can expel feelings and frustrations through characters and the situations they are in. It can be theraputic to exercise that last one. I've taken out my frustrations on characters a few times and it does help empty oneself of all that negative emotion, easing the burden if not taking it completely away. Ah, but the poor characters, the things they must suffer to abet the author's "recovery". I know a couple of you reading this know what I mean. It's the reason that some stories are only appreciated by the one who wrote them. Others don't know where that idea came from.

So I apologize to those characters that I've beaten up or beaten down. But, gentle character, you've helped me more than you'll know. That is why I must also be good to you and give you times of unbridled joy and happiness. Because you provide for me, I'll provide for you. It's a mutually beneficial relationship. If I don't write, you go into stasis...as the character that I left blind for three years. But I'm sure he'll have a nice long rest after his eyes heal. He'll be back for more.

To all of you fictitious phantoms who speak to us all, writers or readers, thank you.