Paksworld

This has been one of those days.   Not only was I interrupted, not only did I have other things than writing that had to be done today, but it was a gorgeous spring day and I didn’t get out for a walk at all.

As a progress report it’s a dud:  not one word on the book today so far.  For anyone contemplating a career in fiction,  you need to know these days happen.  They’re frustrating to infuriating, especially when you aren’t goofing off on a gorgeous spring day photographing flowers, or fishing your favorite spot, or lounging in a hammock with someone handing you iced drinks and delicious snacks at intervals.    If you aren’t getting work done, at least you should get to enjoy it.

There’s more than one grindstone a writer’s nose loses skin to…or maybe it’s the other side of the main one.   The business side of writing takes time.  Sometimes a lot of time….as in hours and hours.

Today was lost to computer stuff (doing things left undone when we first hooked this machine up to the internet–but  there’s still more to do, for it to completely replace the laptop, my former internet machine), dealing with contractual matters for university visits, making travel arrangements for one of those visits (involved going to multiple sites, comparing routes, flights, costs, etc.),  attempting (unsuccessfully) to find out froma different city’s own mass transit sites how to get from point A to point B and what it would cost,  answering agent and editor queries,  reviewing other documents for an organization I’m part of,  answering multiple phone calls, some of them urgent and requiring a thoughtful response and emails ditto and ditto.    There was the cow thing, for instance.  Luckily it turned out not as serious as first thought, so I’m not having to spend the day helping reduce a cow to its edible components.

I’m tired.  I’m hungry.   I’m frustrated.    This is normal for such days in the life of a writer, and such days do come.    If you’ve managed your time well (a hollow laugh goes up from most writers at this point)  you’ve planned in some wiggle room.    If I get any words written tonight, I’ll call them a bonus.