Running slightly late today, because I’ve been having the mulligrubs, as my grandmother used to call it. Basically, I’ve been frowning, scowling, muttering, and otherwise grinching about the house, contemplating the unfairness of the universe in ignoring what I want to do with my time, and what I’m actually required to do with it. Or at least, what I think I’m being required to do, which might be different. Or not. 🙂

So for my weekly ration from my Point of View, here’s this. Many, if not most, of you guys are writers, just as I am. Or just as I’m trying to be. Writing is a solitary pursuit that swallows time whole, like a python eating dinner . . . or like my piebald dachshund eating pretty much anything that doesn’t eat him first.

Writing requires hours upon hours of sitting at the computer, pounding on the keyboard (or the desk, itself, if your Muse has deserted you), and otherwise being actively engaged in doing something that pretty much looks like doing nothing to the casual observer.

What writing doesn’t require is a mile-long list of things to interrupt your day’s work. Laundry, taking the dogs out, grocery shopping, taking the dogs out, vacuuming, taking the dogs out. You get my drift. The flotsam and jetsam of household chores and day-to-day errands. It also doesn’t require having to leave town for days at a time, even when it’s for something you want to do and know you’ll enjoy. Or taking endless phone calls from people who know you are writing, yet really need to talk about their relationship problems, string theory,  or the meaning of life.

I’m not saying ALL of the above is happening to me right now, or even that it’s anyone’s fault that some of it is. I’m not saying I’m being made miserable by any of it, either. I’m just saying that what isn’t happening is very much writing. If I’m going to meet my goal of ten books in five years, I have to continue to produce two books a year. And I can do that. But only if I have more days of actual writing, and fewer days of life’s interruptions.

At my age, I don’t have decades to tell my stories, and I really want to tell them. So I’m trying to find a balance that will allow me to do things I must do, and at least some of the things I want to do, without feeling frustrated that my current WIP is nowhere near as far along as it should be at this point.

My question to you good readers is, how do you deal with this? And is there any way at all to convince other people you are really, TRULY, working while sitting at the computer, and not diddling around on Pinterest, checking out things on MeetYourSexyNeighbor.com,  or playing Candy Crush? I need to find a way to mesh my writing schedule with the rest of my life, without hurting other people, neglecting my house to the point of having the State Board of Health condemn it, or leaving myself walking around with a PERMANENT case of the mulligrubs.

What say you? Inquiring minds wanna know! 🙂