Years ago, back when I found myself deeply in debt and unable to find a decent-paying full-time job, I signed up with temporary agencies and worked three jobs, seven days a week, until I found better and better (and better-paying) jobs, until I finally got the position as a web manager at Company in Northern Virginia, and could work only one job instead of three. Mind you, one of the three jobs was teaching, and it was a joy to do, but after a while, Job in NorVA became too involved for me to teach on Tuesdays as well as Sundays, so I had to stop.
Now I’m working two jobs again. I’m doing the web job on Monday through Friday, and writing seven days a week if possible. Actually, for the month of May, I’m taking each Wednesday off from my paying job to work on my non-paying (so far) job.
So far, it’s working. I wrote 5,000 words last week, a pace I used to think was impossible. And I may yet sit down and write a few hundred more tonight after dinner. I want this novel finished more than I’ve wanted anything else in my entire life, except perhaps during college, when I really, really, really wanted Bucky Dent to dump his wife and choose me instead. I got over that when I watched his wooden performance in the TV movie, “The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.” Yes, he was that bad. (I decided he could still dump his wife, but now we’d only have a fling.)
Oh, back to writing. So I am on track so far, and we’ll see what happens next weekend. I’m taking a trip up to NJ for Mother’s Day. I will, of course, have my laptop and tablet, so I can and will write while I’m on the trip. But I won’t be spending all day Saturday and Sunday at the computer. Not that I really did that this weekend. It’s more like sit and write for an hour, go do something else, write for another half hour, go do something else, have lunch, sit out on the deck with Tig, sit and write some more.
Heaven. Sheer heaven. It’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.