BACK ON TRACK

"It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly a scream pierced the air...Good writing takes enormous concentration." Charles Monroe Schulz Peanuts, 1988.

I love "Peanuts", especially the ones where Charlie Brown is at his typewriter writing. I've got quite a collection of these little gems now. And the quote from above "Good writing takes enormous concentration" is so true!

Today I'm more or less back on track except I had so many little chores to tend to I didn't really get any time to write. One week from today I'll be on a plane flying to London.
So I have to do those mundane chores like dusting, vacuuming, and tidying the apartment.
It wasn't quite as time consuming or difficult as I'd expected though and I did manage to get a great deal done today.

Tonight my Scribbler's critique group came for our weekly meeting and I read the last part of the Athens chapter furthering the political intrigue in my novel. I appreciate the excellent critiques from my writing peers, and was relieved and pleased to get lots of accolades from this particularly difficult piece of writing.
It makes all those hours of sweating it out at the keyboard worthwhile. Now I feel encouraged enough to get back into it again and try to get a little more done before I leave.

Although I've been busy with other stuff, I haven't been entirely neglecting my writing . For one thing, I'm the receiver for the entrants of a one-page prose/poetry contest so I have to read and record each piece that comes through my mail-box. Saturday will be the screening day to choose 10 of each category for the final judging. Friday night I have a board meeting for the poetry collective, and yesterday I spent some time editing and rewriting a director's blurb for my friend, the Babylonian, to go in the program for the show he's directing next month (ANU, which is conceived from the story of the Sumerian sun god and combines spoken word, art, dance and music.) And...for the rest of the week in between I'll be teaching my last classes.

If I can get just another little bit of my novel done this week I'll be happy. While I'm away I will make more "Shadow" notes, random writings, get ideas for travel stories, and hope that the Muse speaks to me about my Sappho play.

"Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences."
Gore Vidal (Interview in Paris Review 1981.)