Hear ye, hear ye! Let it be known to all that on this day, at 8:22am, I officially finished a half-gallon of milk before it expired. I offer the above as proof. This "being at home for a sustained period of time" stuff is nice.
Besides consuming large amounts of dairy products, how is my week of self-imposed solitary confinement going, you ask? Not too shabby. Unless you want to know how the actual work is going. Shabby. I'm finding that my concentration is about as constant as that of this little fellow, who was nipping about in the delphiniums this morning.
In case you're wondering about the inspired day of a procrastinator, it goes something like this:
Get up at 5am in the hopes of catching early inspiration.
Move workspace to another room in the house (in my case the kitchen table, because Casey wants to be on the porch, and he can't if I'm upstairs, which is where my office is).
Make a late-morning tea party complete with tray, pretty doilies, mother's wedding china, and copious amounts of tea. Caffeinated, of course.
Get giant Post-It pad at Staple's and write out entire outline. Decide that the kitchen is too small for Said Outline and move it out onto the porch.
Move cat off outline.
Stare at outline.
Start doodling on outline.
Tape snippets of yarn to outline.
Again, move cat off outline.
Return inside and make another pot of tea. Decide that you've had too much tea, so make lunch instead.
Become deeply engrossed in meal preparation. Decide that what you really need is fish to help with concentration. Get in car and drive to nearest town to purchase fish. Return home with a car full of groceries and research fish recipies. Then research nutritional qualities of couscous vs. rice. Decide on couscous. Decide to clean out fridge while putting groceries away.
Do dishes. Even if there are only two in the sink.
Wipe off countertops.
Decide the butcherblock countertop is dry and needs oiling.
Clear all material off countertop and apply oil.
Wait 30 minutes and wipe off excess oil.
Replace all material on countertop.
Realize that it's 5pm. Time to prepare dinner.
Prepare Said Dinner.
Realize that your workspace is on the kitchen table. Relocate workspace and set table.
Consume Said Dinner.
Gaze outside at a beautiful sunset and promise yourself that you'll do much better tomorrow.
(Oh, and then blog about it.)
9 comments:
3 pages a day. No more, no less. You can do it. Per: Julia Cameron.
Go, girl!
Hugs,
Three pages?! Hmmm... Is that double-spaced? ;-)
Three whole pages? You should have gotten the smaller post-its.
Well, I'm still not convinced it's you, what with the number of posts this week rivalling the total number last year and all, but I can tell you my dorm room in college was never more spotless than the thirty-six hours before I had a paper due....
It's a nesting thing - like cleaning house before you give birth. Very womanly of you.
rooting and cheering from the sidelines - I always do better for having something to revise - and so stream of consciousness babbling via keyboard works for me. Then I give it to someone who doesn't care to look at and critique.
Then I start to write.
hugs from the queen - who hasn't slept 6 hours in the past 48.
Hi Clara,
Sounds remarkably like the days I've been having lately . . . only instead of remove cat from project it would be wrestle project away from toddler ;)
When I was in college and had writers block working on a paper the thing that got me writing again was to bake something, preferably chocholate. A good batch of cookies or brownies always did the trick and by the time I was eating them I'd worked out what I needed to write at least in my head . . .
Good luck!
Martheme
Hmmmm! These are all verrrrrrrrry helpful suggestions. Right now the strawberries are ripening, which tells me it might be time for daily strawberry shortcake breaks? ;-)
see.. the pictures themselves give me inspiration.
perhaps you just need more pictures? or more chocolate? chocolate and strawberries??
STRAWBERRIES!! I had a bowl of them this morning, warm from the garden. You'll have to share your jam secrets with me, Anj.
love your writing "process" -- it's good to know that I'm not the only one easily distracted around the house...
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