I woke up just before 6 this morning. Rather than waiting for my 6:30 alarm to get me up for my morning eye drop, I got up and did the eye drop. Then I turned off the alarm and went back to sleep. And I finally slept in. I didn’t fully wake up and get out of bed until after 9. It was wonderful.
Well, except for the splitting headache. I decided not to take any sleep aids last night and just see how it went. The answer was that I was able to sleep okay, but the pain did not go away overnight as I half hoped that it would.
I took the migraine medication when I got up, because I wanted to get some writing done today. I also gave myself a rule for the day’s writing. I would not turn on the TV until the short story that is my homework for the online writing class I’m taking was complete. Since I hadn’t yet started it, that meant I might not watch any TV at all today.
I had ruminated overnight on the prompts that were part of the assignment, and I thought I had a start. After I ate breakfast (yogurt with mango chunks and walnuts with cinnamon on top), I played around on my phone a bit while drinking my morning caffeine in the form of tea. I didn’t start writing the story until a little after 11 am. It started slow, but started to gain momentum when I realized I needed to start it a bit sooner in the timeline. I took a break to eat lunch (still no TV), and then got back to it. I finished at a little over 3400 words just after 3 pm.
I used to think that writing a story took a long time. But in the last year, I’ve been able to write stories over 3000 words each in a single day. Imagine if I did one every day. I’d have so many stories! Of course, I’m not typically doing the writing on work days. I’m not sure I’d be able to do that on a work day. But if I did one each weekend day, that would still be a lot of fiction.
Since I haven’t checked my mail since early in the week, I walked down to check it during a break in the rain. It was nice to have the TV off when it was raining and thundering this morning. I could hear the wind howling, and the rain pattering on the roof. It’s been stormy on and off all day, but I did manage to get the mail during a brief sunny period.
I’m going to bed a bit early tonight because I need to get up very early so I can be on the road by no later than 6 for my 7:40 appointment in Nampa. I’m not looking forward to driving all morning and then working all day and then choir practice in the evening. I mean, I am looking forward to choir, but it’s going to be at the end of a very long day. Maybe I should have gotten a hotel in Nampa… Too late now. I’ll make it work. Espresso tomorrow morning when I get back from the appointment should keep me going through the day.
I wish Ambrose could have read my story. He was my first reader. He would catch most of my typos and tell me when things didn’t quite make sense. If I’d skipped something on paper that I thought I’d conveyed. I’ve written a lot since he died. I like to think that he’s reading over my shoulder, but it’s not the same. I did dream about him last night. We snuggled in bed and I asked him why he had faked his own death. Sometimes I wish I could wake up and find he’s still with me.
