Well, it didn't work. Didn't get the chapter really finished, and didn't manage the bathrooms or the vacuum either.

I did manage most of the chapter, and some dishes, and made some potato salad and did some laundry. I also kept a five year old and a six year old amused for the most of the day, went to the grocery store for potatoes (and I'll be going right back again today for the cilantro I forgot, and a turkey and a leg of lamb -- might as well pay the sales tax only once).

But I'm not getting into that 'groove', that sense of the story being something I'm documenting instead of making up. There is a sort-of otherworldly story zone I can access sometimes -- only, regrettably, tantalizingly sometimes -- that brings me so fully into the story that the thing will write itself. I looked for it yesterday.

But that's just not how the little bastard works.

No, it demands that I sit and zone doing nonsense things in front of the computer for an hour before it will peek out of my subconscious and let me in the Super-Secret Decoder Doorway to Magic, or whatever. In other words, I have to be relaxed to access it. And it's not relaxing when I have a few brain cells listening out for small children (who are painting and running in and out of the house with the paint on their feet) and a husband who works from home too, and the phone, and the dryer so I know it's time to fold 500 or so towels. But I'm too tired at night to write the way it really pleases me to write.

Lordy. I just read that over. Do you think I complain enough? I'm not entirely sure...

Anyway, today -- again -- I do have a plan: pick up my oldest from camp and listen to all her stories and see all her pictures and projects, and feed her. I don't expect to get to too much story today. Today is Pickles' big day.

:)