Tuesday, February 20, 2007

oh, for a normal day

Although I like to consider myself a bit of a free spirit, lately I've realized that I'm very much a creature of habit, particularly when it comes to writing. My perfect day is this:

Get up at an ungodly (for me, anyway) hour
Drink coffee, make lunches, drink more coffee, take healthy children to school or drug them so that no one at school will know they're not healthy. (Ha, ha. Just kidding, of course.... would never stoop to such a low level, unless of course there was a major deadline.)
Go to coffee shop, write from 8:30 to 12-ish (or until 1500 words complete -- this includes chatting time, which is evidently an integral part of my morning writing)
Go home, eat lunch, check e-mail, blog, do other household tasks
Exercise from 1:30 - 2:30
Resume parenting duties until bedtime.

The problem happens when I schedule other events in there, or have things like page proofs due. Or children who start projectile vomiting. Like today, in fact! The kids, who were a bit under the weather last night, went to school late; right after dropping them off, I went to a marvelous talk I wouldn't have missed for the world, then gave a talk to my daughter's second grade this afternoon (I got to wear hats from the dress-up box). Then I picked everyone up and finished reviewing the page proofs for Beads of Doubt, which are, in fact, due today. (I just sent them.)

In short, my word count is a big fat zero, and I'm feeling more than a bit discombobulated. If that's the word I want. (I did, however, squeeze in a 20-minute walk.) Now it's time to read chapters for the critique group tonight, which fortunately is pleasurable work. And I can hear the dishwasher calling me...

But tomorrow should be normal.

I hope.

When did I become so set in my ways? And when do you all write?

6 Comments:

At 10:28 AM, February 21, 2007, Blogger Laura K. Curtis said...

OK, for some reason my RSS reader stopped being able to read your blog. So I've been very irritated at not having to account for my word count!! I just thought you'd stopped posting until today at which point I manually came and saw that you'd been here all along. So now I have no idea where my word counts have been, but I think I've been managing an average of about 600 words or a day...most days. Not all days. Ugg. How am I supposed to get this done??

 
At 12:20 PM, February 21, 2007, Blogger Karen MacInerney said...

Laura,

You are doing it; just keep at it!

I wrote 600 today, but it was all in edits, so I count that an accomplishment.

And 600 words a day is an accomplishment; just start counting with me again! I'll be back on track tomorrow; we can do it together!

(And we do it one page at a time. Together.) :)

So glad to see you!

Karen

 
At 10:59 AM, February 24, 2007, Blogger Christa M. Miller said...

I had the same problem with my RSS reader. :P Anyway, your perfect day sounds like mine! Right now, with a 3-year-old and a 3-month-old, I squeeze writing in whenever and wherever I can. My PDA is my best friend right now....

 
At 4:19 PM, February 24, 2007, Blogger Karen MacInerney said...

Christa,

I am so with you; when I wrote my first book, I had a 6-month-old with a terrible case of reflux and a three-year-old who never napped. I was lucky enough to have a babysitter (the same wonderful woman who designed my web site, incidentally) a few afternoons a week, or I'd still be writing it, I think.

Just take it day by day. And I'll have to follow up on the RSS feed; I know you can track it on weblogs.com (I think that's the name of it). I'll see what I can find out on the feed, though -- you're not the only one with that problem!

In the meantime, love those kiddos... but keep the faith, and keep writing!

Karen

 
At 5:21 PM, February 24, 2007, Blogger Christa M. Miller said...

NO WAY - your baby had reflux too, and your 3-year-old never napped either?? Holy crap, you have lived my life. That gives me hope! LOL

 
At 9:25 AM, February 25, 2007, Blogger Karen MacInerney said...

Christa,

LOL... When I read your comment out loud to my husband, we both laughed.

Obviously we're leading parallel lives here. :)

Hang in there... it does get better. I promise. And keep writing -- even if it's in 30-second intervals between projectile vomiting episodes. :)

Hugs,
Karen

 

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