I spuddle.

For the last little while, technically it will be a year in July, I’ve been working again.   And by “working”, I mean “writing” because that is the only work I know how to do.   I am between agents but I did sell my own WIP to a publisher and it will be out in Spring 2011 and you better buy it or else I’ll unfriend you.   Oh, wait, this isn’t Facebook.   Well, buy it anyway.   It’s good and funny and has aliens and crop circles and teen angst and a bunch of corn and marijuana.   WHAT IS NOT TO LIKE?   ‘xactly.   (It does not have a title yet.   For now, we’ll just call it KITTENS TO THE RESCUE, shall we?) (No kittens are involved in the novel.) (Think of it as a filler title).

So I wrote that book.   (OK, OK, I HALF wrote that book and am writing the rest, I am, seriously, for real, AS WE SPEAK, except not really right now because obviously am blogging and not writing a book).   Then I wrote another one called THE KING OF BANANALAND VS. THE PORTAL OF EVIL.   And that was pretty fun, so I started writing another one called [INSERT SECRET TITLE THAT I DON'T WANT YOU TO STEAL HERE], but I shelved that one for a bit because while it was also fun, I wasn’t quite ready for it yet.   For one thing, it stars actual grown ups, and I’ve been writing about the young uns for so long that grown ups feel very intimidating with their quirky maturity and rational thoughts.   So I rewrote an old book called THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ME.   Then I wrote something else called [CAN'T TELL YOU OUT OF FEAR YOU'LL STEAL IT, TOO] [HA HA, I'M SO PARANOID], which is almost — but not quite — finished.    I’m not showing off, or I am, but only a little, I’m just saying that literally EVERY SPARE MINUTE that I have has been spent writing or procrastinating which is really a huge part of the writing process, so you have to make time for it, too.

This has come at a bit of a cost.   For example, I don’t have much time to see friends — probably I don’t have many left because I’ve really been writing to the exclusion of much else, apart from the 12-14 hours a day I spend entertaining/disciplining/chasing/yelling at/wiping up after my kids and the hour I spend watching completely brainless reality TV shows like ANTM or Amazing Race.   I don’t get my haircut.   I don’t get a manicure.   Well, that’s a bad example because I never have, but you get my drift.   I don’t go for a walk by myself or go to the gym or do other normal person stuff because on some level I feel like I have to be writing all the time until I get a new agent/another contract/a paycheque.   Why am I telling you this?  OH, COME ON, you know blogging is my substitute for therapy.   I don’t go to therapy.  I AM BUSY WRITING.

Another thing I haven’t been doing is reading.    I know, right?  Double U Tee Aitch?  (Spelling out letters amuses me!  I am easily amused!)   I used to read a minimum of four books a week.  I’m not exaggerating.   Lately, I’ve been reading only YA and MG and that feels like work because someone on my Twitter stream was yapping on about how you have to read heavily in a genre in order to be successful in it — which is rubbish because I’ve been successful in these genres for a long time without reading it much — but I felt like “Hey, I read it on Twitter, so it must be true!”  I’m sort of an idiot like that.   Anyway, for a while I read some YA and MG, usually just the first few chapters because honestly it’s not “escapism” when it is also your job and if you are me then it opens all sorts of doors for the Insecurity Fairies to fly into your brain and sprinkle their “YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE DOING” dust on every surface, leaving you in the fetal position wondering if you actually have the skillz now to get that job at MacDonald’s that you failed to get when you were fourteen.

I can honestly say that reading other people’s YA and MG does not make me a better writer.   Instead, I worry that I’m inadvertently stealing someone else’s voice and/or that I suck.  No one wants to feel that way.  And it’s making me sort of not love reading because I feel like I’m doing it because I ought to, not because I want to.

So what I did today — and on Saturdays, Mr. Spuddle takes the sprogs and deposits them on his mother’s floor where they play with a myriad of My Little Pony toys ecstatically for eight continuous hours, returning home at bedtime high on sugar and the adrenalin rush of having successfully lifted the pink poodle from Grammy’s My Little Petshop playset and managed to get it home without being caught — was NOTHING.  ( They usually take three hours to put to bed after that, but no matter, I’ve had a day “off” which I invariably spend updating my blog and Twitter and also, yes, writing writing and more writing.)

Today, I went shopping.   I had to return some jeans that were made for someone who is not shaped like a large C with a bulge in the middle, which actually is what I look like due to a lifetime of bad posture and weird protruding belly, so I exchanged them for kids’ shorts because the kids are not shaped like large Cs or even small ones, and thus deserve clothing more than I do.  Then I went to the library and spent an entire hour selecting 75? 60? some alarming number? of books for the kids and for me.   You know, picture books for them (we burn through about fifty a week), and actual adult hardcover books for myself.    Then when I came home, I felt guilty for NOT WORKING and panicked and did a bunch of work and then I realized I was getting all wound up and anxious and my shoulders were somewhere near my ears so I CLOSED THE COMPUTER.   I did.   And I watched Project Runway.   Then I made a grilled cheese sandwich.   Then I went downstairs and got a beer out of the garage — they’ve been there since last summer — because I’d sort of forgotten that I kind of like beer.   And I chose a book from my library pile (How To Talk To  Widower — Jonathan Tropper).   And I sat down and decided to just sit.   And read.   And drink my beer.

Then I knocked the beer over and it spilled all over the floor which is just Fate’s way of telling me that I’m a lazy good-for-nothing and I should be working.   So I mopped that up and then I tried again.   Then I thought, “Hey, I should blog about how I’m taking a day off from writing*.”

And I did.

The End.

* To make up for this transgression, you KNOW I’m staying up late all week to meet the word count.   But still, it’s a day for ME!   Well, not exactly for ME, but for all of us in the house who enjoy clean laundry and wearing socks.   (I bought socks for the kids.  That was the “shopping”.  I realize I made it sound more fun than it was.  But I also bought Easter stuff!) (Also for the kids.) (OK, fine, I ate some of the candy.) (Yes, I do feel sort of sick now.)

Filed under: Me, Myself and I, writing