Getting No Work Done

     Discipline. It's a funny thing.
     As any writer will tell you, the first trick of the trade is the ol "butt to chair" proposition...Making a standing date with the typewriter (as it once was)... the laptop or in my case, the journal, is the number one rule of the game.
     Limiting your distractions is a close second...When the world inside your head competes with things going on the outside, things can get tricky.

     I have a writer friend who lives by the sea, setting for which has inspired more than one best seller. But when invited to stay in her writer's cabin while collaborating on a project, she showed me the utility closet in which she'd stuck a table and chair snugly next to the hot water heater. Turns out nature was great for the concepting part of the process, but it was just too darned distracting come time to write. In her words, "Looking at that... ("that" being waves and gulls and the occasional whale her end of the world was known for) ...I'd never complete a sentence."
     Personally, I like nature backdrops (both in sight and sound), but toss me the four-legged kind and I'll be calling my editor for an extension every time.

     "NOT keeping them... NOT keeping them... NOT keeping them..." is my new mantra here of late. But ever since bringing home a couple of TJs puppies just long enough to find them homes, well, my space has resumed that familiar energetic vibe of pitter-patting puppy paws running across the hardwoods along with those melt-your-heart facial expressions, that will have you stopping whatever you're doing long enough to hit your knees, pick one up and rock (and rock and rock) forgetting all notions of time and space and deadlines and worldly stuff.
     I need another critter like a hole in the head. Heck, I didn't plan on keeping any of Rosey's and now I'm the proud mother of 4 pyrenees--dogs which, btw, grow to the size of small ponies and eat their weight and then some, especially in their growth spurt phases.

     So the weekend was a bust as writing and work goes. Oh well. Guess everyday can't be uber productive. Days like these, projects get outlined, not produced. Papers get stacked, not printed on. Before me lies not one, but three lists of things to tackle, people to call, appointments to follow up on that I did manage to get ON the books. There just wasn't a lot of activity toward producing said books this weekend, reason being "There's a puppy in the house!" (Worse -- there are 2!)