A decent writing day

I often put off clocking out when there’s a gap between the end of my work day and the time when I get a chance to clock out, as today. It’s just that I forget my days so quickly and dredging things back up is so unappealing. But with practice I mind it less.

I turned my ankle yesterday, so today got off on a strange start: had to ice my ankle, and moving around was trouble. But it got better as the day went on, and Erik went out and bought me a better ice pack and a compression bandage, and those have both helped. All in all the ankle has been much less debilitating for my work day than a headache or stomachache, or even sleep deprivation, so let’s hope that keeps up (though goodness knows what will happen when the week wears on and I’ve gotten no exercise).

Began the day reading Pema Chödrön because I had to return it to the library today, and that carried me through till lunch. After lunch I felt very sleepy, but began gamely to read and notate two more years in Virginia Woolf’s diary. These were the sparsest notations yet; I don’t know whether that’s actually because there was less that resonated with me in those two years, or just because I felt so stupid. Then sat down and did my morning pages — seven longhand on smallish paper — and that helped spur things on in the brainbox. At that point it was nearly dinnertime. I dawdled getting round to writing up a blog entry about my ankle but finally did it, and was very pleased when Erik said he liked it.

Then that’s it for today — a quite decent workday in spite of the ankle and the oddness of it.

I came up with a wonderful idea for a novel while Bright and Mauricio were here, and it’ll be perfect for doing Virginia’s method: dash and then finick later, and also think and plan and incubate for a very long time before writing. I was hoping to do the latter part this week on long solo walks, but now that that’s out of the question I will have to find new ways. I am thinking of a bath, and the sauna at Bridges, and possibly the garden, and showers, and so forth. Today I was so full of words and thoughts from the weekend that I had not the least energy to start planning a story, but I hope tomorrow will be more fruitful. This is the week of half practice, half project, after all; if I can’t work up to doing the novel, at least I can work on my short kids’ story or go over Gone again. Or just do lots and lots of drawing practice.