Like sands through the hourglass …

I never used to get the feeling that days were rushing by. These days I often do. I suspect it relates to the fact I can’t just let my mind wander now that I’m full-time freelance——fifteen minutes spend goofing off is 15 minutes of productive time denied my employer, which is to say me! Which is not to say I don’t goof off, of course…
Time felt particularly rushed this week, since we’re taking today off for some social time w/TYG’s friends. Still, it was a productive week:
•I took on another story for Raleigh Public Record. Both are now at the awkward point of waiting for people to call with information——though I’ve gotten enough stuff on the bigger story that I could reasonably complete it now if I had to (but it’ll better story once I get everything).
•No Good Deed Goes Unpunished got very good reviews from the writers’ group.
•I finally feel I’m making progress on the replot of Brain From Outer Space. I’m forcing myself to stop at every point where I have a question and not going any further until it’s answered. That seems to do the trick.
•I have a rough draft for my next And column.
•A Happening in Hell (working title——though as it’s set in 1968, including “happening” in the name appeals to me) is getting more of a shape and an arc to it. I feel confident it’s going to get where I want it to be.
On the downside, work took much longer this week than I expected. This may be partly my mind balking at having to get everything done in four days, and partly that I had multiple errands to run (take TYG to drop off/pick up car, get my hair cut, donate blood [only I couldn’t find the blood drive site so I’ll have to reschedule])——amazingly, if you spend time on non-writing things, it affects productivity. Who knew?
But even given that (and that running errands during the day always makes it hard to pick up the writing thread again) my afternoon writing seems very sluggish. I used to skip afternoons entirely because they were my creativity low-point; that hasn’t been a problem for a while, but now it seems to be. I’m debating whether I should go back to having a 90-minute lunch; scheduling lighter, less intensive work for the afternoon (hunting for markets, working on queries) or shifting an hour of work or so to evening. I shall experiment next week.
Still, it’s important to remember that despite the temptation to slack off, I did get everything I wanted done. And I’m managing the time devoted to the newspaper stories much more effectively, which bodes well for the future.
And hey, a three day weekend is always nice, right?