Story Progress

On Saturday, the Beautiful Wife took the boys to a birthday party, and told me to "go somewhere and get some writing done". This, because she knows that I'm desperately trying to work on a short story, and that writing time is hard to come by. So the chance to go set up somewhere away from the boys, and just take an evening...

...Well, actually, I can't seem to get that to work. When I write, I want a comfortable, enclosed environment. If I can decorate it with things to help put me in the right mindset for a particular story, so much the better. The Beautiful Woman is right in thinking that this sort of space simply doesn't exist in our house; the problem is, I can't think of anywhere to go outside the house that wouldn't be hideously distracting, particularly on a Saturday night.

So, in a volcanic outpouring of frustration, I cleared off the computer desk (which, because we're moving, had acquired a layer of things that had been taken down from elsewhere). The computer desk lives in the master bedroom, which used to double as the library, so it's not exactly a comfortably enclosed space... but at least I could close the door, and I wouldn't have to worry about what to do with the laptop if I decided to get up and use the bathroom.

That worked, more or less. I got about two pages done. I also stayed up later than I should have, and these days that throws my system off a lot more than it used to. Still, two pages isn't a bad start - especially if I can manage to focus enough to keep going from there, and double-super-extra-especially if I can do that without getting myself into a cycle where I push myself, end up tired, push myself harder, end up more tired, and push myself even harder... until finally, I'm reduced to bleary incoherence, and the story only gets finished because a winged, skeletal chipmunk named Squeaky has appeared to me, and I've transcribed the rest of the story from the words of his ancient, secret language...

Yeah. Really don't want to end up doing that.

Anyway, some progress has been made; I need to rest and then do more; work, of course, is trying to kill me; and mystic visions of demonic small fuzzy animals are no way to write a story.

And by the way, Squeaky wants me to tell you all, "Hi."