I’m trying to finish my ‘book’* before Saturday evening. Or at the very very latest by Sunday morning. That would mean I can send it off to be printed before I go on holiday. ‘Holiday’ is used in the loosest form here – it’s more a chance to revise ALL the things than a chance to relax.

But anyway.

Book.

It’s taking me considerably longer than I expected and I have been distracted considerably more than I’d hoped.

Most, but not all, of it self inflicted distraction [obviously]. Things like vacuuming the house or hanging out washing or putting up Christmas lights. Things like new fish and new filters and borrowed dogs and fish illnesses. Things like friends and Committee Meetings, and Forum-riots, and birthday travellings. Things like life.

I have written hideously long emails and forum entries instead of reading my course books, and spent time on the phone instead of on the computer.

I have started sorting my unruly collection of photos, instead of taking the ones I need and ignoring the rest.

I have even watched useless programmes on TV instead of revising or proof reading.

On the other hand, after several years of dossing**, my computer objects violently to having to work so hard, and crashes my writing programme every so often – just to make me appreciate its hard hard life. My brother helped pacify it, but it’s still not totally happy.

Rewriting or reformatting the same thing multiple times can make one mutter things like, “well isn’t that irritating”….

***

I have to work during the day and I have school every other evening during the week and at weekends, so when it comes to doing things I want to do, I’m left with lots of scraps of time squished between all the other things. Lots of those scraps are either too small to use, or occur when I’m nowhere near my computer.

Neither schools nor work is prepared to go away and let me write, so the answer is [obviously] to write at night when I would normally be asleep.

That’s not necessarily a problem – ​I work well, probably even my best, at night.

The problem is, I don’t work well at work if I’ve worked well at night.

I don’t even work well at getting up when I’ve worked well at night.

Not that getting up was ever easy. I’m not a morning person at the best of times, and when I’ve slept an average of 5 hours a night for a week or two, I am decidedly less so.

I can’t function at work without sleep and I can’t function at writing without work (to keep me in chocolate and heating). I can’t function at sleeping when I know I won’t finish writing in time.

Vicious circle?

Maybe. Maybe I’m just stretching the bow a little too far (German expression).

Maybe, hopefully, if I stretch it just right, it can be like a rainbow, and I’ll find there’s a pot of something sparkly at the end of it..

In the meantime, I’ll look more closely at all the colours emerging from the grey fog in my head.

Luckily DB is prepared to cook for me.

Luckily my colleagues understand  (a bit) when I’m unfocused.

Luckily I’m almost (!) finished with the book.

Luckily it’s almost Sunday.

Luckily I have ten days of recovery (and revision)*** in a warm country to look forward to.

Luckily I have the luxury of choice, even if things seem unchangeable.

* book = a project I’m working on for my grandparents

** nothing to do with MSDOS

*** R&R ??? 😉