tossed into the wind complete freedom

I really hate writing rough drafts. I know what I want the characters to do, I can see the story stretch before me, I get fascinating, maddening little flashes of action and dialogue and motivation while I'm doing other things (like the dishes, or laundry, or any of the myriad of tasks I took care of today), and yet putting the words on the page is agony. The first draft doesn't live up to the vision, and so it's hard to force myself to sit there and do it when I just want to weep and gnash my teeth, etc.

So needless to say, I stayed in bed longer than I should have, and I didn't make it into the gym until after 12:30pm. But, I did my workout, and I happened to talk to Alyssa for a bit since she was stretching at the same time I was. Then, I came home, did the dishes, took out the trash, and did two loads of laundry + a load of wash-only (my placemats, which are awesome to look at but a bitch to clean, since they have to be air-dried and then desperately need to be ironed). In between those errands, I kept staring at the manuscript, but I made no progress. Tomorrow's another day, etc.

I finally tossed in the towel and met up for a late dinner with Heather (aka dear respected madam) at Left Bank on Santana Row. I actually tossed in the towel sometime before that, since I decided to take some time with my makeup, figure out an outfit that wasn't jeans and a hoodie, pluck my eyebrows, etc. (all of which is a clear form of procrastination). But, it was great to see Heather, and we spent a couple of hours catching up over wine and steak (yum). I got home around 10:30, caught up on Twitter, etc., did some online browsing (including looking again at that dress I love from Betsey Johnson that I blogged about on zee romance blog...sigh), and successfully closed all online stores without buying anything. If I do sell a bunch of books and become rich and wildly successful someday, I will probably singlehandedly revive the retail economy, which is ridiculous considering how much I like to wear my pajamas instead of heels and dresses.

But now, I'm going to go to bed; I have to train tomorrow morning, and I'm editing someone's book as a freebie to figure out whether I want to start a freelance editing consultancy, so I need to take care of that tomorrow. Goodnight!