Old Habits

Last week was a busy one for me. I spent it playing Crazy Animal Lady, which is different from usual only in the amount of time dedicated to that particular pursuit. You see, rather than being a vocation or even avocation for me, CAL is actually more in the way of being a fact of my life--it's not what I do; it's who I am. And this past week, it morphed into an all-consuming passion as there was a week-long dog show located in my own backyard and attended by lots of people I know with lots of dogs I admire, so naturally I spent at least a bit of time there each day, either with my own dog or routing for other people's dogs. I even neglected by horse to do so, which meant that when I finally spent time with him on saturday, said horse felt compelled to express his disappointment with me by throwing a mild little tantrum when I first climbed on his back.

Anyway, I bring this all up because it happens to be my excuse du jour for having gotten absolutely no work done all week on my current project--the latest, all-new installment of my Others series of paranormal novels. I'm really, really good with excuses. In developing an endless stream of new ones, I exhibit extraordinary powers of imagination, creativity, fantasy, engineering, anal-retention, and occasionally even cleanliness. All of this has nothing to do with whether or not I enjoy my work. I love it! I have the best job in the world, but in my philosophy, even the best job can be made better by avoiding it for as long as humanly possible and doing other, more constructive, things instead. Like playing endless hands of Spider solitaire, giving myself exacting manicures, alphabetizing my DVD collection, catching up on laundry, or teaching myself how to do a professional grooming job on my dog. Then, in two months, when I realize that I only have four weeks left to write a novel, panic will set in and I will lock myself in a small room with no television, radio, windows, or company and pound out a book while emerging only occasionally for meals and fresh glasses of Diet Coke.

And that's when I will vow that next time, I'll start early, write every day, and have the next book done with time on my deadline to spare and maybe even time for a real live spell check before I turn it into my editor.

Then, I'll decide that grooming my dog is so last month, and I'll need to learn to shoe my own horse instead.