Holy. Fucking. Shit.
I got carried away last year, knowing the Mau-Mau would be out for two days a week. I tried taking on a whole bunch of extra shit. I shouldn't have done that.
This year I've been more careful. I've signed up for a Masters degree, yes. And I'll see if I can't work up to my 2nd Dan grading. I also want to put some of those hours to use on the grounds and property. Should be able to achieve a fair bit there.
But mostly, I want to try to work. I want to actually establish a work habit measured in thousands of words per day. I know I can do this. Four to six thousand words in a day isn't new to me.
The thing is, to produce that sort of output I can't be sitting in my study with one ear half-cocked for the sound of screaming children. I can't be glancing at my watch every ten minutes, calculating what I've got to do about making lunch for several. And I cannot be responsible for coming up with plans and routines to motivate and interest children when their own imaginations fail.
Writing takes time.
I try to pick it up at the end of the day, but there's no way I can stay in bed later than eight in the morning. Usually seven-thirty. And the family isn't safely abed until nine-thirty, maybe ten at night. And I'm not a person who can sit down and immediately pick up the the energy and the complex thread of what I was writing yesterday - I need to ease in by reading, editing, etc.
That does make writing a damned difficult proposition for me. And so I'm looking forward to this year. Which is probably bad, because something is bound to happen to screw it up.
