A Little Distracted

Our daughter, Holly, is a traveling nurse. She lives in Indy, but for this assignment, she took a job at a hospital close to us. The good news is that she can stay with us on the days she works, and she’s insisted on paying for the nights she stays–part of the rules of being a traveling nurse. They have to pay for lodging. We’re just happy to see her. She usually works two or three days, then has two or three days off. Not always, but most of the time. On days off, she drives back to Indy to stay in her apartment and see her cats, grown kids, boyfriend, and friends.

She’s been working the med surge floor, so she has COVID patients, but none on ventilators. It’s made my sister nervous, so she’s asked us to stay away. I understand, and luckily, we’ve helped her with everything that needed done when my sister with heart problems died in May. Patty’s house has sold. We moved everything out of it and sorted through things. The majority of the paperwork is done. So things are in good shape.

I have to say, though, it’s been hard to find any kind of schedule or set writing time for months. And that’s not going to change for a while. I have to write whenever I get the chance. The distractions are worth it, BUT, they’ve made me a lot more sympathetic to blogs about how hard it is to find writing time, how hard it is to concentrate and churn out pages with one distraction after another. It’s easy to say make time to write. Harder to do in actual practice. I’ve written three short holiday stories lately because it’s easier to hold a short story in my head than all of the things that go into a novel.

I’ve written a few new chapters for Jazzi 7, but I’m on chapter 28, and I need to keep track of everything that’s happened before that and keep in mind everything that comes after it. I need to see the entire storyline, where everything fits in it. Not so easy lately between getting ready for the holidays, more phone calls than usual, and people coming in and out. But I’m adapting, and soon, I’ll find a different rhythm, one that works better for the time being. And then it’s back to pounding out pages.

December’s one of those months. It gets busy. I hope you find moments to sit down and write. And if not, I hope the month fills you with inspiration for the winter months when it’s more tempting to hibernate and hit those keys.

Happy December, and happy writing!