Chasing Tail

At some point before I awaken each day, I must be moving my arms out from under the blanket because what wakes me is Sneezy making biscuits on my bare skin. She always manages to find that one little place that isn’t covered. If I draw the arm back under the covers, she switches to the other arm. Today, as I lay there enduring the torture, I wondered why we call our sheets, our blankets, our bedclothes -- covers? Is it because they cover the bed, or because they cover us? Maybe subconsciously we relate it with undercover, which covers a variety of secret activities like reading with a flashlight, or playing with snakey.

Ideas on the subject of covers were going off faster than paparazzi flashbulbs in my brain, one after another. The timing was right, the play on words so delectable I tasted them. This post would have you ruining keyboards. I got up, let the cats out, made coffee, let the cats in, the husband came home hungry, there was dinner to make, the dishes to clean up, cats to let out, cats to let in, and by the time I sat down to write – poof. It was gone. How freaking annoying.

This happens to me all the time, most often when I’m in the shower, or out in the garden. It happens in places where my brain is engaged in something that doesn’t require concentration, and somewhere, way underneath, there’s a little wiggle, and the wiggle worms its way to the surface and breaks through the concrete. The idea hatches full-blown, and all that’s required of me is to write it down before it wriggles its way back to the netherworld. But of course, there’s no pen handy. I will run in from the garden, my hands covered with soil and manure to jot down the gist of an idea, but I will not run through a chilly house, soaking wet with hair dripping. I have limits. What really ticks me off is when I’m writing gangbusters and my husband comes in to tell me about some dumb thing he’s watching on TV (especially when it’s a commercial), and breaks my concentration. Like now.

Do you remember the last good idea you had, where you were, what you were doing at the time, and what caused it to disappear?

I am particularly annoyed today because it was the best idea I‘ve had in a while. I’m in edit mode, not writing mode. I’m desperately trying to get the chapters in my novel flipped back and forth between past and present, while weeding and pruning with what I’ve learned from Miss Snark in the past few weeks. This has been going on long enough and I want to start querying again before the paranormal trend dies and becomes the ghost of Christmas Past.

I can sit and read someone else’s work, and what needs to be fixed is clear as brand new contacts to me. When it comes to my own, I might just as well be sunk in a mud bath with tea bags over my eyes. I think I am not getting the whole “this is set-up” business, especially when no one will be running through my story with a flaming coiffure.

I feel guilty when I don’t visit everyone else’s blog, or reply to comments, and I must take time to go vote on Miss Snark’s blog, since I participated in the Crapometer this time. I think I owe her at least that much. Before I know it, the clock will strike midnight, and I will have lost another day. I will edit until three, okay, five o’clock, ignoring the e-mails popping up in my box, and the ones already open and shouting for my attention before I crash and burn to sleep the morning away. Then I will somehow manage to allow my bare arms to sneak out from under the covers and rouse to find Sneezy making biscuits on them. I will tumble out of bed, start all over again, and not accomplish a damn thing.