Thursday, March 06, 2008

Ah, the Glamorous Life of the Work-a-Day Writer

I know it's cliche to moan about how fast the year is going, but I'm doing it anyway. I almost really-truly-seriously-literally (sorry, I'll stop) can't believe it's almost spring. Why, I still have a holiday gift to return.

Despite a New Year's cleanup, my desk is littered with end-of-'07 business and all the junk I've worked with so far this year. Glad I poked around just now; I see that my car tabs are expiring yesterday. I've got files for the high school textbook I'm cowriting (I'm on my seventh 6,000-or-so-word chapter of the year right now); children's books I've reviewed/will review for my column; materials I need for my upcoming workshop; research for a nonfiction book I'll write in April; tax files for tax time; info for three multisession lesson plans I need to write by June; and notebooks related to the always-ongoing pet book project I wish I could concentrate on to the exclusion of pretty much everything else.

I'm not complaining. I really do like my work. Most days I even love it. I'm just marveling at how much you can write and write and write, and then look away from the monitor to notice it's 3 months later than it is in your head (not to mention your heart). But you know there's no time to process that because it's time to write some more and keep moving right along through the spring. The creative side of your writer's brain wishes you could slow it down. But the part of your brain that has helped you turn writing into a full-time job knows it will be best if summer turns out to be a similar blur, and then fall, and then winter.

No comments: