I went to the office (aka Starbucks) and got a peppermint white mocha. Pulled out the alphasmart. Got a peppermint white mocha frappuccino. Wrote 27 freakin' pages!!! Woohoo! That's not my all-time record, but it's pretty close. Got a peppermint iced coffee to celebrate.
I grabbed takeout barbecue on my way home and then kind of crashed. I watch a little TV. Took a bath and read a couple of novellas in a Christmas anthology. They always make me cry, so I picked up another book for distraction. About 3:30am I finished that book. Oh no! I wanted to get up at a decent hour and get 27 more pages done the next day. I needed to get to sleep.
Only, that thing that happens when you really, really, really want to get to sleep because you have so much to do the next day ... happened. I couldn't fall asleep. No matter what I tried--playing Pirates of the Caribbean off the DVR for the millionth time, dominating a few rounds of Wheel of Fortune on my phone, tugging on my sleep mask to block every last bit of light--it didn't work.
Thing kept running through my mind, like all the scenes I have left in the mermaid book, other book ideas I'm pondering, books I've just read, books I want to read, what I need to pack to fly home for Thanksgiving, what I want in a Christmas tree, a couple of emails I forgot to send ... All that stuff and more kept me from falling asleep until 5:30!!! (Or, it might have been those three peppermint coffees I downed throughout the day.)
But my post-27-pages insanity didn't end there. Here's how today went ...
Got up at 11:00am (after on 5.5 hours of sleep) and dragged myself to the office. Ordered a soy chai latter (my "healthy" coffee drink). Write 6 pages. Got entirely and unavoidably blocked.
I called my critique partner, but she didn't answer. I called my parents. They couldn't help. (I mean, they wish they could, but they're not writers, you know. It's not the same.) I called my critique partner again. Nothing. I finally gave up on the office, packed away my things, and headed to TJ Maxx. I found Generation Dead for $10 (happy dance). My critique partner still didn't answer. I went to Target. I bought the Chronicles of Riddick trilogy--although, I argue that Pitch Black is not a "Chronicle of Riddick" because when it came out everyone was more excited about Claudia Black from Farscape than Vin whoever.
My critique partner finally called me back! (She'd been working in one room, with her phone shut away in another. Good for her writing. Bad for my sanity.) After talking to her for just ten minutes I knew what I had to do.
I left Target, went back to the office (something I almost never do once I give up for the day) and wrote six more pages. I now predict that the first draft of the mermaid book will be done in two--count 'em two--days. Hooray!
Hugs,
TLC
3 comments:
Holy mermaids, Tera! I just wrote 10K words in two days, and that's a world record for me. My jaw has officially dropped at your 27 pages. Here, here!
congratulations i hope that you hit your target and don't get distracted by the everyday mundane things that are hiding around the corner waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting writer.
I once wrote a 25 page term paper in a day...talk about brain fry.
Got an A. Though my prof told me to put more opinion into future papers for him.
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