Seriously, I started a story on this at one time. It may even have been on this computer. Anywho, it was based on the premise that someone in the vicinity of the World Trade Center on 9/11 made a split-second decision to just walk away from it all and be considered dead. I thought it would be interesting to see the ramifications and the fallout on that in a novel form.

Well, while I haven't gotten around to writing it, it appears that the same thing is happening in Louisiana. People who have disappeared and haven't been found because, as one official says, "they don't want to be found."

While some haven't come back because they simply "decided there’s nothing to come back to or for," others are sex offenders or other criminals. And while we don't mind these folks disappearing, the problem is they reappear somewhere else, and without the monitoring we have.

Anyway. It's an interesting possibility.

Speaking of my writing, you may recall that after the bar exam, I found that the "creative writing gene" reemerged in me and got started on a novel. I worked fairly diligently on it through early August. Then, the grocery stores happened and it got put on the shelf.

To my great delight, however, I continue to peck away at it. Now, "peck" is the operative word -- I'm only on page 28 (single-spaced.) But I'm pleased that I've kept with it and it didn't go off to die like so many of my other story ideas, and also that I am able to sustain it over this long a period. (When I'd write long-form fiction, which was mostly done during high school, it usually would take me about a month and a half writing 80 minutes a day (two study halls.)) Since high school, the only true "novels" I've written have both been for the Three Day Novel competition.

That is one of the nice things about this private practice deal. While being light on clients at the beginning leads to anxiety about how one will be paid, I am in a happy place right now where I am finding enough to keep the bills paid as well as have some time to do things like writing.