8/31

Last day of the month, and it was my busiest day.  I didn't make it to the cabin until the sun was so low in the sky that birds were flying into it.

My mom asked me if I was still going to the cabin (she's going up this weekend and doesn't want to find that I left, I dunno, used toilet paper all over the place or something), and I told her I was, and she said, "Why?  It's so late."  And I tried to explain to her that I had this deadline on this book, and I HAD to edit, and she said, "But why all the way up there?  You can edit here," and I told her, No, I can't.  And I'll explain it to you like I explained it to her.  Editing audio is so mind-numbing, so exhaustingly dull and vampiric to the soul, that I will do literally anything to get out of it--like shoveling gravel, or reading, or eating junkfood, or removing photos from my phone, or washing dishes, or exercising--and the fewer distractions I have the more work I'll get done.

But you should see me try to edit: I tell myself, Okay, I'll do just till I have the first five minutes done--just five minutes.  And eventually, I can get to that point.  And then I go, okay, now try to go to ten minutes . . . or just eight, you can do eight, right?  So I set this tiny, pathetic, limp-wristed little goal, and I can usually work toward it, and then I reward myself with a break, even if it's just getting a drink of water or taking a whizz, sometimes as significant as watching fifteen minutes of a movie or reading a chapter in one of the five books I've brought up with me.  And then, with that all-too-short respite finished, I go back to the editing (this time trying to get to the ten or fifteen minute mark in the chapter).

Fledgling is one of my favorite words.  I first heard it in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, and never really hear it anymore.  Has there ever been a movie or song called that?  I'd like to write a story called that.*

I still did the run on the dam, but was coughing and wheezing even a half hour later while editing audio, so maybe I should . . . I dunno, either not exercise at all, or exercise way more?  Tomorrow starts a new month.  I think I'll set an exercise goal, see if I can't, maybe, exercise nearly every day of September, giving myself, say, one day a week to forget or be lazy.  We'll see.

Well, I told you my goal for the month was to write 3000 words, and I managed it.  All in all, my word count for August is 12,018.  Which is pretty close to three thousand, in a way.

Arcove or Exercise: Both

*But I never will.