Shooting Yourself in the Foot

So, I’m sitting here at Panera, getting ready to revise/rewrite this final scene in Freefall (isn’t that an awesome title? Thank you, Emily!). I wound up taking the day off work to get this done.  To be honest, I keep glancing at the clock and thinking, “Hm, right now my seventh graders are…”  and “Right now, it’s 2nd period, and…”  I guess it’s good to love your job, huh?

But that’s not what this is about.  This morning, when I got up and it was writing day, I realized I couldn’t write at home.  (This is due in large part to the fact there is laundry that needs to be washed, a floor that needs to be vacuumed, beds that need clean sheets…  Those are distractions.)  Then I realized that, the last time I tried to write at Barnes and Noble, I got completely distracted by cookbooks.  All those cookbooks.  So pretty.  So colorful.  (I tell my kids you can turn my head quickly with “shiny things.”  Cookbooks are “shiny things.”) It hit me there is only one place where I get head down, screamingly productive.

Panera.

Hm.  This is not good.  There are pastries at Panera.  And coffee.  And it’s not exactly convenient to run off to Panera every time I need to go searching for my muse.

When I got here, I realized something else.  I prefer a corner/wall booth.  I like to feel like I’m settled in and in a cozy little nook.  I can’t write in the middle of the room.  Really, Muse?  Really?  Must you be so picky?

This has got to change.  I think, with the book coming up next, I am going to have to retrain myself.  I need a little nook at home.  There ought to be some corner of my house that doesn’t need to be dusted, right?

Don’t answer that…

-JB