Dealing With It

I’d like to say I was MIA last week because I was getting copious amounts of writing done, really I would. But alas, I can’t. And the really sad part was that I had the whole week off from babysitting too.

The closest I came to buckling down was cleaning my office. I went in there with every intention of writing – well, truthfully I went in there to sit in my comfy chair and read for a bit before I did some writing, but as I sat there I realized my office was just messy enough to be distracting.

Let’s face it, there’s cluttered and then there’s downright messy. Cluttered pretty much means you have a lot of stuff, but you still know where to find (most) things. Messy means stuff is piled up haphazardly and you have no idea where anything is. My office was messy.

This time I did it right, too. Instead of my usual shuffling papers and piles around, I actually found homes for the detritus on my desk. It wasn’t exactly procrastination, it was a job I’ve been putting off for way too long. And no, it didn’t take me the entire week.

I caught up writing entries in my journals, tinkered with a couple of poems, and took a look at some of the shorter stuff I’ve been working on. And there was a lot of it. An appalling amount really. I mean, between the short stuff and the unfinished novels I have enough to keep me busy for the next ten years without having to start anything new. And how sad is that?

So I came up with a game plan. I made some lists, I prioritized, and I set some goals.

Now all that’s left is to get to work. Thursday.

Why Thursday? Because the daughter is in Washington D.C. until late Wednesday night, and I’m looking after the grandbaby full time until her mother returns. I get Thursday and Friday off for good behaviour, which technically means a four-day weekend.

Now I just need to get my writing mojo back, preferably before Thursday.

Prompt of the Week

I’m going with a prompt from The Story Shack again, but this time I’m going to share what the generator comes up with up front so you can give it a try too. It’s a lot of fun to have different writers all working from the same prompt. And even if you don’t care to share, you can still see how your idea differs from mine when I post my story on Saturday. And if you do care to share, by all means send me your take on the prompt and I’ll post it on Saturday as well.

Word count: 500
Genre: Drama
Character: A child hater
Material: Not enough money
Sentence: "I'd like a day without punishing you."
Bonus: Winter is long and extremely cold.

There you go, 500 words. You can do it, I know you can!