This morning I walked to the dentist. On the way, I figured out how to fix my manuscript (I’m revising). In the chair, I solved another issue that had been bugging me (all while getting my pearly whites shined up nicely). The part I need to fix is in the last quarter. I’m about a third of the way through right now and I know exactly what comes next and what I have to do, so I’m not the least bit stuck. I even have the manuscript marked up in front of me. And yet…It is now nearly four o’clock and I have only revised three pages. I have had a leisurely lunch, a good read, and done a whole lot of internet surfing, but the writing eludes me today. How can one day be an eighteen page day (yesterday) and another be a three page day? How does that happen????
Hmmm…Does all that plotting count as work for today? Can I go read now?
It’s a law as immutable as the laws of thermodynamics: Any day in which maximum efficiency is achieved will inevitably be followed by a day in which focus, concentration, and will-power are gone with the fairies.
I have always blamed hormones, pollen, and/or low-pressure systems for this phenomenon, but secretly believe it is a sign of innate slackerhood. Or possibly Original Sin. Or of having stopped in at the library to pick up “The Dead and the Gone” and then foolishly sitting down to read just one chapter and rising, stiffly, several hours later.
I think it counts, permission to read and I’m impressed you can think in the dentist chair I can’t get past the pure terror!