And now those empty hours return to mock me

I did well enough on my writing last week that the hours I lost to extra pet care or donating blood didn’t bother me too much. This week, they bother me a good deal more.

I came up 10 hours short on my writing time this week (keep reading). With two weeks left in December, I’m suddenly aware of how much could have been done with them, and the hours I didn’t write last week. Especially as the Leaf articles picked up again so I’m putting in lots of time on them. I thought I’d factored that in: x amount of Leaf articles leaves me with y hours for Impossible Takes a Little Longer and z for Oh the Places You’ll Go.  That doesn’t work as well if it’s y-10 hours

Multiple things derailed my schedule this week. For one, TYG got handed a major rush project which has led to much more dog care on my part. Even aside from that, the amount of dog and cat care in the morning just keeps increasing for various reasons. 8:30 AM is my new normal for starting work, rather than 8AM — that’s 2.5 hours gone right there. And there’s really no period to make up the time as evening writing is very iffy unless I’m absolutely completely focused.

For another, the washing machine broke last Sunday. I drained the water out, examined the drain — last time this happened, there was a sock stuck in it — but it didn’t help. I tried again Monday for about a half hour, then called in a pro. He showed up the next day (yay!) but he had more questions for me and needed my help doing things such as lifting the dryer off the top of the washing machine. That sucked up more time, but it had to be done. And he correctly diagnosed and fixed the problem, so yay again.

Third I came down with a mild cold Tuesday. Physically it wasn’t anything but a runny nose but it completely wiped me out for the afternoon and evening. My plans to make up for the washing-machine distraction went nowhere. Wednesday I was back to normal, thank goodness.

I didn’t get anything done on Impossible and maybe 3,000 words on the next draft of Places. However I also reread my earliest draft of that short story and saw what I’d been missing. I replotted and it’s much stronger and (I hope) more interesting. So that’s good.

And then I finished a bunch of Leaf articles, with more to come on the weekend and some next week. I also wrote a couple of posts for Atomic Junk Shop, one on Silver Age hero Karel Sorensen and one on how the way I read comics has changed.

I got nothing done on Undead Sexist Cliches but at least I have a cover to reveal, courtesy of my friend Kemp Ward.

I think it looks great. Now I just have to do the last little bit on the book.

#SFWApro.