I’m typing on the floor of my bathroom because it’s really too early to be up, and I don’t want to wake the house. On the other hand, I have chocolate-covered almonds beside me.
I should be fine.
Wednesday we had a lovely, sunny day, and I broke my strictly observed office hours to go play hooky at Duke Gardens. I told myself I could brainstorm as I walked, that it counted as exercise, and, after all, I’d already put in several hours in the morning. I told myself it was the only way I’d get a break from my ever-present tissue box and sniffling cold. Mostly, though, I tossed all my disciplined rules about keeping a regular writing schedule out the window and ran off in the sunshine.
Since my hubby accompanied me, we did talk a little about my writing tangles. He’s my favorite person to brainstorm with. But mostly we enjoyed ourselves. There was a great blue heron standing across from us in in the shallows of the pond. We finally figured out that the trees with the lovely burnt amber leaves in winter are American Beech. I fell in love with a tiny waterfall.
Somehow I’ve missed it when we’ve wandered there before.
Just before we left, I stepped inside the office and reception building, so I could poke my head inside the great room.
I really love that room–if I had the chutzpa to do it, I’d bring a pillow and lay on the floor so I could stare at the ceiling.
Wednesday I asked the gentlemen at the desk what kind of wood is in there, and found that the soaring ceiling is cedar, while the massive cross-beams are douglas fir. I also learned that the gardens are 55 acres in size.
Good facts to inform my dreaming and wishing list!
Since we left the gardens too late for me to be dropped off before pick up at the kids’ schools, I didn’t get back to my desk until the kids were in bed. But, in the next hour and a half to two hours, I finished the chapter one edits on 13 Demon Days which could easily have taken a full writing day. My brain was refreshed, the snarls smoothed out, and my writing on a roll.
So, to answer the question of the post title, when is a writer working? My answer would be–whenever she says she is!
Even when it looks like she’s just playing hooky in the sun.
