I have to laugh about this… I mean, I really just have to laugh about it… because if I don’t laugh, then I might start crying and then I’ll never get anything done.
First, a bit of back-story:
We moved last April/May. Since then, it has been a juggling act between unpacking, remodeling, rushing off to author events, and scrambling around to find time to write.
WHEW!
It’s exhausting just saying all of that.
At the beginning of 2018, mom and I made a decision to cut our author events down to almost nothing. We will be at SOKY… because it’s SOKY! and the Kentuckiana Authors Fair (formerly known as the Independant Authors Fair) because we said we would, but that’s all we have planned for this year.
2017… and 3 years in Nashville… burned us out. Even the mondo FABULOUS cruise we took last October did not recharge our batteries. Those last two years in Nashville were just too much. The neighbors… the nasty smells… the vandalism to our vehicles… the screaming…
I’m going to stop there because it’s all too much.
At any rate, we made the decision to focus on writing this year. We really need the break–and we really need to get ahead on some of our writing projects.
Unfortunately… well, you know what they say about the best-laid plans…
January is nearly over and I have yet to get ahead, much less catch up. So, in my quest to find some quiet time, and in an effort to increase my writing output–in a house filled with people who take turns needing me at invariably the moment I’ve finally managed to re-immerse myself in the story world, I made the [quite possibly insane] decision to get up at an hour when some authors are just crawling into bed. And, yes, I was one of those authors not too many years ago.
Now, anyone who knows me at all, knows that I am not a morning person.
I’ve never been a morning person. One day a year (Christmas), my eyes pop open at a ridiculous hour of their own accord. The rest of the year, I drag myself out of bed… literally… every morning. I am a night owl. I’m much more comfortable writing late into the night.
However, when you have teenagers in the house, they will use you staying up as an excuse to stay up themselves–so writing late into the night ceases to be an option.
So I made the decision to try the opposite side of the spectrum. I went to bed ridiculously early. I dragged myself out of bed after hitting snooze only once (yay me) on my alarm. I tiptoed to the bathroom, then to the kitchen. I waited for my coffee to brew (really wishing I had a programmable coffee maker with a 12 cup capacity this morning). I made cold cereal, partly because it’s quiet and partly because my brain was still off at that point. And then I settled in to write.
Let the games begin…
First, daughter…
No sooner had I sat down, than my daughter’s wracking cough sounded from the end of the hall. She was ill weeks ago, but that pesky cough is holding on with a vengeance–and every kid wants their mother when they’re coughing their little head off… no matter how old they are.
Next came the kitty.
It took nearly twenty minutes to get sweet Macy settled and calm enough that the coughing subsided. And by then Miss Sophie wanted breakfast. She didn’t care that it was not yet 5am. We were up. We could feed her. And that was that.
OK.
Daughter settled ✔
Cat fed ✔
Back to writing… right?
Not so much…
Next came the teenager, who takes after his mother in more ways than with the imagination. I mean, this is a boy who acts like you’re torturing him when you wake him up at 5am to leave for vacation.
NOT TODAY!
Today he woke of his own volition at 4:56am.
I mean… seriously? Come. On!
Not cool.
So, here I am… writing a blog post instead of working on my novel–because I know the moment I click anywhere in that document, someone will pull me away… again.
Ahh… the life of a writer.
I need more coffee.
©JCMorrows 2018
JC Morrows 