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Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Wet Wednesday

I didn't expect when I started blogging that I would post every day. Lately, however, I have been doing that - so much so that I feel mildly guilty to miss one. I have no need to, I'm sure.
I was up late Monday night. I am working on annual accounts for a small literary magazine. One of our staff has to go overseas urgently, and I needed to sort out receipts and make sure that everything was documented for the auditor before she left. Then the following morning I was up early. The M.O.T.H. was having keyhole surgery on his knee, and had to be at the hospital at 7a.m. So, I dropped him off, went to see C. for a final sorting of her receipts and other matters, then went to work - and was still two hours earlier at work than I usually go. I had little to do, so by early afternoon I was back home. The phone rang, I picked up the M.O.T.H. from the hospital, and had the rest of the day free.
I had dealt with the three big tasks for the day, and my mind was blank. I knew there were plenty of things I could do (including blogging), but couldn't really recall what they were. I must admit I didn't try very hard. My system seemed a bit out of joint from the change in sleeping patterns, and I had a sinus headache. So I took a nap, and in the evening I watched TV.
I rearranged my work days to fit round the knee operation, so I don't have to work again till Friday. Today and tomorrow I am taking care of all the little things I didn't do yesterday. I had a fat envelope in the mail yesterday - some of my poem babies being returned from a publisher, with a "no thanks but please submit again" note. So I have to take stock of what I have, rearrange the rejects from two different magazines, add new ones and send them out elsewhere. Unfortunately being a small country, there are a limited number of magazines in New Zealand, and some of them now only publish yearly. So I won't be able to send out anything too many times before it goes in the "permanently rejected" pile.
I have a stack of library books to return this afternoon. I wanted to share this quote, before the book goes back.

Most writers, by nature,need a lot of time by themselves. It's important to write alone, at least some of the time, but I think it's important for us to be alone a fair amount of the time, too. Then we can often get rid of a kind of internal scorecard that makes us compare ourselves to others, and that makes us do things according to the way we think others would have us do them. We need the chance to draw from our own unique selves, to act according to our own beliefs, without any interference from others. I believe that solitude, perhaps more than anything, breeds creativity, breeds originality.
from "Escaping into the Open", Elizabeth Berg

1 comment:

Kay Cooke said...

That's a great quote - glad you're having a productive day - getting more library books out? I have to do that this week too.