Note: if none of this makes much sense it probably because it is part three of a series.
To figure out what the heck I’m going on about, I suggest you read Monday and Tuesday’s posts first.
Or you could not, and figure it out from context clues.
I hear some people like that sort of thing.
Wednesday
The plan for Wednesday was essentially the same as the plan for Tuesday: get up, feed cats, dance, write, coffee, lunch, write, make dinner, feed cats again, take celebratory indulgent midway bath, maybe write a little more, relax.
Given how well that plan worked out on Tuesday, though, I decided to revise it to
1: Wake up
2: Do…something?
3: Sleep.
In doing so it seems I accidentally hit on the secret of the perfect plan, because in practice my day went like this:
1: Wake up.
Realise that horrible, throbbing, feverish brow is somehow neither throbbing nor feverish.*
Very carefully, in case this is some kind of a trick, get out of bed, make cup of tea, feed cats, and return to bed to sip tea and contemplate the nature of reality.
2: Reality not having collapsed around me, get out of bed and do fifteen minutes of dance practice.
Discover that limbs are, inexplicably, not leaden, and that the slightest attempt at rhythmic movement does not cause the room to revolve around me like a lopsided merry-go-round.
Think.
Wonder if, by some miracle my cold is cured.
Sneeze.
3: Decide that, since the other shoe is bound to drop sooner or later anyway, I might as well write while the writing’s good.
Sit down.
Open laptop.
Stare.
4: Continue staring.
Attempt a tentative sentence.
Delete sentence because it is bad.
Repeat.
Repeat again.
Continue repeating for approximately the time it takes for a new species to crawl out of the world’s oceans and establish itself as the dominant form of life on Earth.
Stare some more.
5: Look at word counter and wonder how I have managed to get three hundred and forty four actual words onto the page, when every sentence was equally vile, a sinner to the end, dyed deep with corruption and villainy, and bound for the gallows.**
Decide that as all my sentences are awful anyway I might as well just keep writing.
6: Look up, some time later, to realise that I have now written several thousand words, none of which, now I come to look them over, are actually particularly bad.
They’re pretty funny, in fact.
7: Offer a posthumous pardon to all the sentences I deleted in my folly and rage.
Much good it’ll do them.
8: Get up, stretch, grab a face mask*** and walk to the coffee shop.
Purchase new, exciting, chocolate and hazelnut beverage.
Walk home, remembering only as I take off my shoes that I don’t actually like hazelnut all that much.
Never mind.
9: Eat leftover salad for lunch.
Drink coffee.
Make notes.
10: In the absence of any suddenly landing clogs, continue writing.
Feel increasingly suspicious about all the nothing that seems to be happening today.
Despite this, get a few thousand words written as the house persists in not falling down around my ears.
11: Get up, stretch, make different, equally exciting salad and stick it in the fridge for tonight’s dinner.
Go and run bath.
12: Lounge in bath, soaking in cocoa butter from celebratory bath-melt,**** while listening to Max Miller’s Tasting History, and eating chunks of mango.
It’s a hard life.
13: Get out of bath.
House still has not collapsed.
Eat dinner then decide not to press my luck any further, so spend the evening reading, catching up on social media, and nibbling the extra-thick dark chocolate coated ginger biscuits I bought to reward myself for being A Good Writer.
14: Retire to bed, wondering why it all went according to plan.
Sit up in bed, struck by realisation that it didn’t.
It didn’t go according to plan because I changed the plan.
For today, I had planned to fail.
Naturally, then, I succeeded instead.
15: Lie down again.
Wonder whether I can possibly plan a rail strike for Thursday?
*Nothing can be done about the horrible, I fear.
**I.E the delete key.
***I may not have COVID but nobody deserves this cold.
****From Bimble: they are a small company, environmentally friendly, and very good value for money.
Also their bath melts and “Depth Charges” (bath bombs) are wonderful.
I highly recommend them.
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