Wherever you go, there you are

Sunday Blog 49 – 14th August 2022

“I thought it was the job, but it’s just me.”

I met a dear friend for coffee on this crazy full moon Friday. It was not me who said this, but it very well could have been. I had to say “me too, me too”. We both solemnly agreed that it wasn’t in fact the job, it was our own lamentable propensity to say yes to everything that meant we had once again pushed writing to the margins.

With painful irony I saw a journal entry this weekend that I had written in my diary of February 2021; “You can in fact only do one thing at a time. That is difficult for me with my weighted-down to-do list. Perhaps a forced exit from this role is the only thing I can do to truly interrupt this pattern.”

I left this laden-down role in March 2022 and enjoyed several blissful weeks, almost amounting to 2 months, of feeling foot loose and fancy-free. But like the poor old Ancient Mariner, the albatross of not being able to say no has followed me to the other side. And here I am, too busy again. A freelancer with no free time.

Wherever you go, there you are.

But my friend and I clinked coffee cups and agreed that we would exercise and write before doing any freelance work, and if that meant we didn’t get to our desk before ten, so be it!

Another writerly friend and I had coffee on Saturday and she advised me it is actually a lot easier if you just work on the damn book every day, rather than on the weekend.

Something in this just made sense, so this is me, day two of working on the damn book every day.

It will be late, but that goddam book will be done!!