If I were a more dedicated and more organized person I would blog every day. Of course if I were a more dedicated and more organized person I would probably write more which might mean I would publish more which could mean I would have even less time to blog. And if I were a REALLY dedicated and REALLY organized person I would eat better and exercise more and be an all-around healthier person.

Ha, like that’s going to happen!

I started this blog a year ago (yes, I had a blog anniversary last month and wasn’t even organized enough to celebrate it or acknowledge it) with the idea to record my writing life. I’ve never been good at keeping a paper journal and it appears I’m not doing a lot better with the online one. Thing is, I made a promise to myself to write about my writing life and try to keep my personal life (except as it relates to writing) out of it. Not that I don’t enjoy reading about other people’s adventures but the only part of my own life that is remotely interesting is my writing life. Sometimes there are weeks where it seems like I have no writing life. Working a fulltime job (as I know many writers do) means having to juggle my writing time. So I don’t blog and then I feel bad about not blogging and then I don’t blog some more and it becomes more of a vicious cycle. I know Dot and others have spoken a lot about guilt and blogging so there’s no need for me to go there. At one time I had this lofty vision of blogging a weekly essay about the writing life but for now I seem only able to cling to posting on poetry Friday.

Maybe I’ll try doing a roundup post of writing things. Like for the last two weeks it has been royalty time. That means I go home from work and check the mail, wondering if I will have a statement and then wondering when I open it if there will be a check in there. I still don’t have all the statements from all my books but I think it is a safe bet to say that with the money made from this royalty period I can either put gas in my car or take my husband out to a nice dinner, sans alcohol. Sigh. I knew there was no real money in the writing business but I really hate being reminded of it so forcefully every six months. Since it is too early to get a statement on Hugging the Rock I will allow myself to pretend that the next royalty period will be quite different.

I have been trying to work on a new project but there haven’t been enough blocks of time to do much writing. Most of it falls under the category of brainstorming, which is an important part of writing but still, I want to see words going down on the page. I have a couple of sentences, a good opening, but that’s it. I’m working up a talk for a school visit on Thursday and hoping that maybe I will finally hit upon a talk I can reuse so that each time I do this it isn’t brand new and a ton of work.

I am still looking for a new computer as the HP nc9430 I bought is on its way  back. Very frustrating to have the money for the computer and not be able to find one to buy. And I am preparing to move, which means packing over 5,000 books and the rest of our very cluttered household. It’s my hope that in the new place I will be able feel at home in the office. We’ve been in the current house for 2.5 years and I don’t think I wrote more than 10 pages in my office. It just never felt right. I’ve done most of my writing on the couch.

I’ll end with a question – what do you need to make your office feel “just right” as in right enough to write in?