Get going, you tell yourself, the morning is disappearing fast and you’ve got stuff to do – Get on with it, make a move, any move, but then you sit there distracting yourself with one thing after another under the pretense that you’re thinking, only of course what you are really doing is delaying.

Writers can delay awfully well.

Then there’s the coffee routine – can’t get going without a cuppa – only there’s something wrong with the first one, so you’d better try again. Or it’s good, perfect even, so nice in fact, you want another. Either way, you get into your second cup and maybe a third, followed up by the inevitable trip to the bathroom – it’s more distraction.

You play with words in your head, only the words roam off and become other things completely. You start working main-character to main-character dialogue and end up wondering if today’s the day you’re supposed to put the rubbish out, or if a slice of mudcake would go really well with that new cup of coffee you’ve just made.

It doesn’t work, folks, and pinging elastic bands across the room is not an option. You’re not even pretending to work with that one.

*

So you open your files and you look at your work and you wonder why you stuck some poor sod with a stupid name, only it’s too late now, he’s stuck with it and so are you. Or worse, you improved a name, made something much sexier, and that’s out there, too, but then you realize it sounds so like another name for a character later on, and that name was perfect, but you can’t use it now because it’s almost indistinguishable from that new one. (Damn it! Why didn’t I pay attention?)

Again you realize your focus is not where it should be, but it goes on like that and you know by the end of the day, all you’ll be able to say for yourself is that you looked at some files. So you get wily, you change a couple of words around and call it editing. Yeah, that sounds better.

Finally the day is done and you fall into bed, wondering where it all went and why you didn’t get anything done today. The lights go out and it’s dark. You’re tired, but you’re working on that problem and you can’t go to sleep. Not yet. Not until you’ve solved it. Of course you drift off eventually, or maybe you can’t drift off at all. Then the ideas start to flow a bit and maybe you’ve got something and maybe you haven’t, but there’s a bunch of words there and you wonder if you will lose them if you don’t write it all down. But you’re smart, you’ve got a pad and pen next to the bed, or even a fully charged up iPad, so you get it all recorded. As the words go down, others pop up and suddenly you’re on a roll.

By now it’s about 2:00 a.m., but you have to get up and do it properly – grab it while it’s working. Only you really are tired now because you didn’t sleep and you really want to sleep.

Maybe a cup of coffee might help…

DISCLAIMER: No, this has not been my day recently! I’m going great. Adventures are unfolding and Sevi hasn’t lost her cool with the obnoxious ten year-old boy, that bastard son of a bastard son of an emperor – but he is giving her the runaround. Sparks may yet fly.  😀

Cheers all!

Allyson