As I sit here writing this post, there is a small bowl full of black jelly beans by my left hand.
I do not like black jelly beans. I don’t like them one bit. “So why,” you might ask, “do you have a bowl full of them right beside you?”
Ah, context. The short answer is that when I poured out the last of this bag of jelly beans for a snack (not a healthy snack, but I’m taking my journey towards being healthy one step at a time), I ate all the jelly beans aside from the black ones. Those were then returned to the bowl so that I can throw them into the compost upstairs… I don’t know if jelly beans actually compost (I suspect not, since that would explain their eternal existence despite being almost universally loathed), but I’m going to try.
But to a casual observer, it might very much look like I am planning to eat those hideous little black ‘candies’ at some later point, or perhaps have just shoveled a handful into my mouth and they will never know that I do not, in any way, care for black jelly beans.
Writing is often like that, I think (as I at last approach a point to this ramble). The parts that people see are often the disappointing or unpleasant parts that are sitting there until something happens to them. Because you see me editing my newest novel, you might very well think that all I do is edit my novels. Or because somebody glances at me on Wikipedia, they might think that I do all my research on Wikipedia. Of course that’s not the case, but it isn’t necessarily obvious.
And thus, there sits that bowl… I should probably clean that up.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!