Chapter One

I hoped to finish Chapter One of Sex and the Pity yesterday but after four or five hours I was three pages short and had no more words left.  At 3 in the morning I grogged awake muttering, "Oh shit," because I realized in my sleep that I had given away the ending in the unfinished chapter.

Which was kind of cool because I couldn't wait to get back to it this morning.  And then five pages fell quickly and magically & funnily into place.

At which point the afternoon y-a-w-n-e-d at me.  I didn't really have the words or ambition to work on a magazine proposal or my novel.  I transferred $600 to checking, which scared the hell out of me.  I set up a new email account for the chronicles.*  I played too much Bejewelled on Facebook.

Days on which I finish a chapter are as hard in their way as the days I have to write and have nothing to say.

Remind me of that the next time I say "this" is the hardest kind of writing day.

So I laid down for an hour and fell barely asleep.  This afternoon's unconscious obsession was my desire for rotisserie chicken and French cut string beans.  So I fed Daisy and we went out to admire the forsythia with the western light behind it, and I was off to procure a sane meal.

After which I explored some Pay Pal options for the f chronicles and feel marginally as though I've pulled the last half of the day out of lassitude.

Chapter One, my worried friends and relatives, is about the men I've had the misfortune to fall in love with and the utter necessity of friends.  Clean as a plate after Daisy's licked it.

I even laughed writing it, as well as cried.

I wish I were one of those people who can finish a chapter at 1 p.m. and be onto another piece of writing by 3.  I have an overwhelming list of things I "ought" to do:

1. Write chapter Four of novel.
2. Outline novel.
3. Outline Sex and the Pity.
4. Redo my franceskuffel.net website.
5. Get in touch with my sponsor.
6. Write magazine proposal about adoption.  Find editors to send it to.
7. Go "live" on the f chronicles.
8. Get out the word that I'm available for coaching.
9. Return 8,000 Twitters and emails.
10. Read a bunch of articles on sex, dating, relationships.
11. Start my series on the new Seven Deadly Sins for my Psychology Today blog post.**
12. Clean my desk.
13. Make reading list for my next nonfiction proposal.

But what I have done since my last post here was finish totaling up thousands of receipts for taxes and write about 20 pages.  

And done some preliminary footwork on the f chronicles.

Which isn't that bad.

And the forsythia, which is not my favorite harbinger of spring, is gorgeous at 6:30 p.m.

* Write me at >thefchronicles@hotmail.com< to be added to the list.  Payment options to follow.

** All the old seven deadly sins are now -- well, I can't say virtues because those are taken, but maybe assets.