Mental Health Day

I tend to get cranky when I don’t write for more than a few days. And I mean “write” as in creating a story. Not just blogging or updating my Facebook status. Working on a nonfiction article will do in a pinch, especially if it’s one that might produce income and therefore support my writing habit.

Let me just say…I’M CRANKY.

I put the novel on hold a couple of weeks ago so that I could work on the short story that’s due the end of February. Then I had to put the short story on hold to spend all my computer hours working on the 2009 Pennwriters Conference. I’m Conference Coordinator in case you’ve missed my earlier posts on the topic.

Registration opens January 2nd. That’s less than two weeks away. There is sooo much I wanted to have done by this point. None of it is. My list of agents and editors seems to be in constant flux. Someone drops out. Someone new offers to come. And I still have some voids in the editors department.

I wanted to have a fair grasp on workshops by now. I’m a bit more comfortable in that department. But it’s hard to make slow, steady progress on workshops when I have to drop everything and go back to working on inviting agents and editors.

Yesterday, I decided to take a mental health day. My plan was to do some housework, watch old episodes of Wagon Train and Alias Smith and Jones
on Retro TV Network, and then watch the Steelers game against the Titans. In the middle of Wagon Train, the electric went out. Poof.

I finished my dusting…no electricity required…and sat down to read. Bundled up in an afghan with Skye kitty on my lap and a good book, I was content. Not a bad way to spend a blustery winter day. Providing the electric came back on before it got too cold.

It did. In fact, it came on in time for me to catch the last half of Alias Smith and Jones. I had to beg the old, dying TV to come on and stay on, but it did.

While I was busy kicking the TV into operation, I also booted up the laptop. I discovered that my conference workers had been busy little bees during the power outage.

The remainder of my mental health day involved sitting on the couch with one eye on the Steelers game (we lost) and one eye on my laptop, exchanging emails with my publicity chair about advertising and promotion and with Pennwriters webmistress extraordinaire regarding bugs in the “shopping cart.”

Actually, it was a very productive afternoon and much was accomplished.

But I need to write. Seriously. I NEED to write.

Hopefully, I will be able to find an hour to work on the short story at some point today. That might be a better mental health day than a day of old westerns.