I should probably know by now that the eight o’clock hour is a dreadful time to try to write. Everything in this house gets ready into this particular hour. Kids eat breakfast and get dressed. Dogs need let out—seperately—and then need back in to eat—again, seperately. There is crying about clothes, about shoes, and about who sits in which seat today. There is last minute homework. There is unknotting of the hair…and crying. Even I have needs beyond writing which easily cross over from seven to eight.
When I notice the clock has ticked to a quarter past the hour I swallow and shrink and I slump into a chair. I skip through the index of things that need to be done looking for a suitable chunk of effort which might fill the remaining three quarters of the hour. A chunk once completed and paired with a promise to write better later tonight will get me ahead on the day. If I do that thing instead of this thing I’ll have won some small measure of the day.
The evening has only rarely proven good for writing. Occasionally I catch a breeze and blow into the eleventh hour with hardly a thought and no resevations about the late hour. The day is literally defined as the time held sacred for the day-job. This leaves me staring smack-dab into the bleary hoary eyes of the early morning. I’ve done this before; I’ve won this before.
245 words on day 868