There comes a time when a writing job eats everything around it. I’m four pages and some rewrites away from nailing down the coffin of this script, and it’s all I can see or think about. This is going to be a full day of drafting pages and moving stuff around and tweaking dialogue, and everything is switched off until it’s done and sent.
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We have germination in the raised bed I built. Under two layers of anti-squirrel security, there’s red onion, carrot, borage, spinach, nasturtium. We will see if any of it actually grows — there’s a cold snap coming.
Indoors, I am trying to connect up pieces of this script, and am offline save for work emails until tomorrow.
I also have twelve days to produce a LOT of material. I spent yesterday rewriting the same four pages over and over again, to no real positive effect. This script has been stalled for what seems like weeks.
One of the apple trees is going to blossom.
Today I am a mass of cuts and pulled muscles after four hours of digging and slicing and lifting yesterday. Only got maybe a quarter of the necessary work out there done. But I feel better for the exercise and for getting away from the screens.
ON DECK: All the things. Script, outlines, descript texts, newsletter, whatever else I blew off yesterday.
INBOX: 89. At some point I want to jot down some current thoughts about Inbox Zero and daily routines.
OPERATIONS: Need to order a new Moleskine – looks like it’s going to be a four-notebook year, minimum.
LISTENING: I’m making myself a “2000-2010-ish” playlist, and this was required:
READING: THE MONK, Tim Sullivan.
LAST WATCHED: THE BEEKEEPER. We will always watch a Jason Statham film.
CONDITION: 7hrs 38mins, after taking painkillers to sleep.
SHIPPING FORECAST: I’m starting the week late, but I do have to spend a lot of time at the keyboard this week, so I presume the week here in my notebook will have a pulse to it, however irregular.
I should be working today – should be working double hours, in fact – but my brain is all used up. So I’m switching everything off, putting my earbuds in, and going out into the garden to start the spring clean (spring equinox tomorrow). This holly tree needs taming, too. Tapping out for today.
Well, I was going to take today to begin the spring clean of the garden. But it is, of course, raining. So I am re-listening to an excellent episode of Music Planet that was playing on the radio while I was cooking yesterday and am getting some other things done instead.
And while I was typing that, I got a newsflash to say Steve Harley has died.
That right there is a red onion shoot. The hole in the bed about a foot north of this shoot is my reminder that I have to put down chicken wire to squirrel-proof the bed, as they found a way to unpin the netting a few days ago.
ON DECK: this script refuses to die. Pretty sure I’m no more than ten pages from the end, but I’m constantly revising it. And I still haven’t completely finished tomorrow’s newsletter, which I need to attend to directly.
INBOX: 76. I’ll process it on Monday morning.
OPERATIONS: Herself is on the road again for a few days, so I have begun the construction of the Vasty Chili. I need to reorganise my schedule and find some time for getting outside while that is happening. Have almost filled the first notebook of 2024.
READING: I needed a palate cleanse, so I’ve read another Tim Sullivan “George Cross” book and am now reading the next one. Night brain needs a good storyteller to take the wheel for a while.
So the constant rain has washed away so much soil that the chicken coop is in danger of flooding in the next storm. And the weather forecasts keep changing their minds about when that is. So I’m downing a couple more coffees and then going out to run the garden shredder, to try and generate enough material to stop the garden from turning into a landslip bog that gives the chickens trenchfoot. Nobody wants chickens to have trenchfoot, so the phone is going on mute until that’s done.