The Frankfurt bookfair has just started and while I don’t attend it, by dint of being the best person with the database and not having an assistant, I’ve been swamped for the last two weeks at work. Only now do I properly appreciate that I’ve missed two weeks of writing, so on my schedule that’s 10,000 words that haven’t been written. Damn, where did the time go? Admittedly it doesn’t help that we’ve just had a weekend of great rugby and the winter tennis season has just started so I needed to practice, but when you’re working full time it’s so easy to forget about writing.
At work we’ve just had an author deliver half of his book that was due in 2005 (and contracted in 2000) with the other half coming, he hopes, in two years time. While I’m not that bad at all, I can certainly see the slope leading in that direction! Unfortunately, there’s too much fun to be had in the evenings to makes time for writing unless you actively choose to miss out.
Which brings me to my point. I’ve now realised that in some ways I’m actually looking forward to my girlfriend going up north for a week – not because she’s anything less than understanding about the book, but simply because I have to act like a normal human being around her! That’s not to say I resent doing so; writing isn’t everything and there are other aspects of my life more important than it, but it’s still an effort sometimes when I’m in writer mode. I’m more productive when i’m at home alone, not required to think about when anyone else wants to eat or sleep, or even put the effort in to think about anything beyond the book. Clearly doing that on an extended basis would leave me miserable, deranged and necking absinthe, but I do rather enjoy it as some sort of occasional, bizarre hard-working and anti-social sort of holiday away from society. Deep down, I’m clearly a caveman. Of sorts.