FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER!

(re-run)

I used to write every day. That was back when I had sleeping babies and pre-schoolers that went to school on a regular schedule. Now that I’m an empty nester I think I am going to write every day, but then stuff happens.

Like exercise classes and long hikes.

Dog walks.

Contractors.

A sister to visit in her care home.

Facebook. I waste a lot of time on Facebook.

But then I got an email from my agent. Two editors want to see more of my stuff. I got motivated and went looking for more stories. I ended up cleaning my office to get organized. I found three dozen manuscripts that I’d written over the past two years. I put them in a plastic box and then alphabetized them.

Half the day was over, and I still hadn’t written anything.   But at least I’d found the manuscripts I was looking for.

Today I tried again.  I came home from exercise class and reveled in the fact that it was raining again, so I was off the hook for walking the dogs. I was on fire with my rhyming couplets when my worker woman/the contractor’s helper pulled up to load some stuff of mine into her truck.  I sighed, wrote down my latest thought and answered the door. My little window of no contractor/no dog walks/no Facebook had ended.

The contractor showed up to help the woman load a big window. Then she left, and he stayed. There was hammering, compressor sounds, and questions.  Even if I tuned out the hammering and compressor sounds, the questions were enough to break my train of thought.

I sighed again and went into the living room to watch the nightly news. A little bit of writing progress had been made today.

Writing. It’s baby steps. Those luxurious days of writing during two-hour naps are long over.

Can I be disciplined enough to write every day? Maybe when the kitchen remodel is finished.

Maybe when I get off Facebook (I did get a story idea from a share that came into my feed).

Maybe when I think of those two editors waiting to see more of my stuff.