Sanity is Over-Rated

I'm trying very hard to regret three snow days in a row and the distinct possibility we will be in school for half of June. Normally, it aggravates me, and right now, I should be aggravated. I have to reschedule the premiere of my students' digital stories. I have an important meeting to reschedule. My students aren't prepared for their mid-quarter common assessments. The computer lab schedule is now royally screwed up.

Yep. I should definitely be aggravated.

Instead, I'm down right giddy. I'm on one of those writer's highs that make everything else seem unimportant. I'm in the kind of zone that makes everything that pulls me away from my manuscript seem an aggravation. I'm only here now because I had an appointment I had to keep, and with Jazzercise in an hour, I dare not re-open the file. I won't be able to pull myself away.

Our first snow day was Tuesday. I opened the new project I've been working on and actually made some progress. Even though I have a rough outline for the plot, I've struggled to find the characters' voices. They aren't fully formed in my mind yet. I don't know how they react under stress, and I put stress on them immediately. But Tuesday, I finally "heard" my heroine for the first time. So I was moving along. Everything was grand.

Then came Wednesday morning. I sat straight up in bed at 7:00 am...on a snow day when I didn't have to get up. I knew how to fix Crimson Crimes. I saw the scene I needed to add like a movie in my head. For those of you who don't know, Crimson Crimes is the almost finished sequel to my first novel. I abandoned it last fall because of a major cohesion problem. I loved the last third of the thing, but I knew in my heart of hearts it was off somehow. I hadn't written the last chapter because the scene before it was wrong.

I've written like a crazy person for two days. I was up at 6:30 this morning. The laundry is piling up. I'm annoyed at my family for being all needy and wanting clean dishes and dinner. I graded a giant stack of tests Tuesday night that need to be put in the computer. I was supposed to get with Amanda and put a Wilma Flintstone costume together, but all I want to do is WRITE!!

These characters I know. They are screaming at me. "Put your butt in the chair and finish our story already. Give us our ending. Make us real. Give us an audience."

I have to make them wait just a little longer. Jazzercise has become a crucial part of my day, and in some ways, I think the exercise has shaken the log jam in my brain loose. And I guess I'll have to feed my family when I come home. I'm pretty sure we'll have school tomorrow, and if we do, I have to dress up like Wilma Flintstone (long story and I'll blog later), but I'm this close to finishing.

All writers are a little crazy. We live in your world, but we've got this whole other one dancing around in our heads begging for a chance to be realized on paper. Right now, I'm thinking sanity is over-rated.