Tough Writing Week

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

          I got smug. I’ll admit it. I’ve been writing at least 1,000 words a day in my monthly notebooks since March. Things were going well. No 40 pages to fill in the last week of the month like happened in January and February. I learned my lesson and wrote steadily—until this week.

          Company that had been scheduled to visit months ahead was arriving soon. Their dog can no longer make it up the stairs so we thought we’d change the rarely-used formal dinner room into a guest room as this particular dog isn’t the only company having issues with stairs.

          Mostly my stuff was stored in there so I cleaned it out, but, of course, it took longer than I thought. Once it was emptied out, it had to be scrubbed—walls, floors, cupboards. Then a bed, side tables, bureau, bookcase, and lamps had to be relocated along with some wall art.

          Then the workmen were scheduled. The old dining room needed a new outlet for the old TV in the new bedroom so called an electrician. Then the cable guy came the day after to hook up the cable box. Plumber came after that to fix a running toilet, but found a bigger problem under the sink. Pipes replaced with PVC the next day so it’s all good, but time consuming and distracting.

          Then I had to do the usual guest prep: make the bed, put out guest towels, fresh flowers, food shopping, cleaning the rest of the house while still keeping up with regular laundry and other chores and errands.

          It was also deadline week which left me little time to write. Obviously my notebook writing is the first thing to go when I’m in a time crunch. It doesn’t pay any bills, make company’s visit more comfortable, or keep our lives going.

          It does, however, keep me happy. Calm. I’m doing what I love while also jotting down thoughts, ideas, project steps, planning, venting, or crossing off To Do List items. My notebook is a place to check in with myself. Without it, I get cranky. So I squeezed in some writing by giving up sleep, not a choice I like to make. Too much stress during deadline week is too much for me to face without a pen in my hand, notebook pages to fill, and time to do so.

My word count for the week of June 18-24 was 6,937, but only 5,393 in my notebook.