It turns out that I’m much better suited to giving something up than adding something in. I can handle the “withdrawal” issues of giving up chocolate or internet, or soda (not caffeine mind you, with true withdrawal issues) much easier than forcing myself to spend 30 minutes each day writing. Last week I was at 7 of 8, but only 5 of those were “on time”.

This week, I managed to pull off 4 of 7, plus make up for the one missed last week.

On Thursday I wrote more fiction. The story I’m working on is one of those self-indulgent “will never see the light of day” deals triggered by a dream I had after playing a bit too much Dragon Age. It’s not fair to say that it’s fanfic, because it’s all original characters and could be anywhere at any time, but it’s certainly not quality and I’m not bothering to work on the world behind the story at all. I’m sticking with it, though, because it’s the first fiction I’ve written in several months and being all secretive and self-indulgent and letting it be the crappity-crap that it’s become is the best way I can get back into fiction writing.

My hope is by the end of Lent (and possibly before), I’ll be warmed up enough to take another stab at a fairly robust world that I’ve created. There’s still a decent amount of ground-work I’d like to lay before I start writing much of the story. Usually I don’t do quite this much pre-work, but I’d like the story to be more than just a relationship between two primary characters and to do that, I need a web. I’m trying to be more George R. R. Martin and less …oh, let’s go with Stephanie Meyer. It has not escaped me, however, that all this plotting is delaying the actual writing for more nefarious reasons. So long as I don’t write it, it has maximum potential for being awesome. I’m not so paralyzed by this silly dream story, which is why I’m working on it, instead.

Friday I posted a bunch of reviews on Yelp. This almost felt like cheating, since it was 4 or 5 very short efforts that I combined into about 45 minutes of writing. Since it was for an audience other than me, however, I feel like it counts. I was also getting (nicely) nagged by my community leader for not posting anything even though I’d received the “Elite ‘10″ sticker on my profile. I suspect I’ll be going back to the yelp well a few times this season, assuming I visit enough new places or dig through old ones I haven’t reviewed.

Saturday I did nothing. I’m not sure why.

Sunday I wrote more fiction. I stopped on Thursday in a good spot where I knew what would happen next, hoping (like Hemingway(?) suggested) that I’d easily be able to get going. Sadly, I failed to make any notes about what would happen next, so by the time I got to it, I’d forgotten. I also failed to note anything I’d thought about including on Saturday, so I was a little stuck. Eventually I worked it out and made sure to not only end at a high point on Sunday night, but to also write down where that note was going next.

Monday was a big day. Since Charlotte’s at daycare all day, I can sacrifice some chore or personal time and easily make up a day or more. I started with an article for murmur that’s been ridiculously popular. I can’t take even a portion of the credit. I mostly just opened the floodgates for everyone to talk about their favorite subject: themselves. Also on Monday, I made up for a skipped day in week 1 by whining about my easy pregnancy because it’s only 90% easy instead of 100% on my blog about my kids. Kids. The fact that’s plural is still pretty flipping absurd to me, and #2 isn’t even here yet.

And then…. And then I didn’t write any more this week until late this evening – nearly 3 full days later. Tuesday was more or less understandable, since Tuesdays are my fullest, most brain-stressy days. I still could have smashed a bit of fiction in that evening, but I didn’t. Wednesday I have a great excuse for, and yet not at all. It was another “Charlotte-free day,” but around 12:30 I took a pretty rough tumble and crashed into our TV console. I spent the rest of the day (and coincidentally free evening) lying on the couch playing video games while being both shell-shocked and relieved that I wasn’t spending the time instead in a hospital room dealing with a broken hand, dislocated shoulder, trashed knee, or god forbid, a fall-induced pregnancy complication. Any or all of which it seemed I had just narrowly escaped. Especially the shoulder one. Could I have spent some of those hours writing? Oh sure. I should have, too, but I was just…completely not in the mood. I could have dropped one or two in this afternoon, too, but instead my body decided that I really, really needed to sleep. Worth it.

That means as of completing writing this (which I’m counting – but for Week 3 since it’s Thursday), I’m now 3 behind. That’s not terrible, and it’s easily surmountable so long as I take the time to fix it, but it’s … disheartening.

So what’s the problem? Lots of things. Like I said, it’s much easier for me to be tempted by something restricted and walk away for a couple of moments over and over and over than to sit down and say “do this until it’s done.” It’s a procrastination issue. There will always be more time later in the day, or extra time “tomorrow” to catch up when I’m not feeling in the mood. Except there’s not more time later. Or there is, but I don’t use it. Or there is, but something comes up and I don’t have the chance to take it.

My plan for week 3 is to put myself on a tighter schedule and restrict certain other activities until after my writing is done for the day. I also need to up my reading (from not at all to every day – just like writing). I’ve been tempted to modify this lenten goal to be “read or write every day”, but I feel like I’ve committed to writing and switching it up now is cheating.

Plus, it’s a sneaky way to avoid writing, which is the opposite of the point.

And then everything changed.

I reached for the lever door handle and tried to open it even as my brain was processing that the fiddling sounds on the other side were not the normal “playing with the handle” ones but were instead a new “fiddling with the twisty part that locks the door” sounds. Before I could finish the “oh, crap, I’d better get this door open before she locks herself in and then never let her do this again” thought, she had locked the door.

Since there was no immediate danger, I started with small, non-panicky efforts. I jiggled. I twisted. I looked for the safety release that had to be on my side while encouraging her to continue playing with (and hopefully un-twist) the handle on her side. She quickly got bored with the game and set off to explore the bedroom. I knew of her regular, safe stops in the room (my alarm clock, ryan’s sleep-number remote, the full-length mirror…) so I figured I had some time to solve this problem before she started for the climbable shelves of the closet, the bathroom toilet, etc etc. I called my husband at work and explained the situation. He immediately expressed confidence in my ability to bust down the hollow door should I need to and then began describing all the places to look for the magic pin that would open the door. Except there was no pin-hole on this door, of course. All the other doors have them, but not this one. 4 of 5 doors in the loft have a pin-hole and she has to trap herself behind the one that doesn’t.

As far as I could tell, there was no way to pop the lock from my side without getting very creative.

By this time it was clear that Charlotte had gotten engrossed with something on her side of the door and was no longer interested in chatting with me. It was time to step up the extraction efforts. Promising my husband that i would call him back very soon, i started working on the door handle. I didn’t want to go straight to bashing, since Charlotte was somewhere on the other side, and I suspected that while I certainly could break down the door, it would likely hurt. Instead, I picked up a hammer and tried to pry the handle loose. After a few “successful” tugs that cracked the hollow door as much as it warped the handle, it was clear that the handle was not going to give up easily, if at all. I could see that with enough time and patience and perhaps a few flat-head screwdrivers, I might have been able to dismantle the handle piece by piece and pop it off the door, but time was not something I had.

Through a series of inquiries, I inferred that Charlotte was well away from the door and heading into the master bathroom to play in the toilet, climb in the empty tub, or maybe over-extend herself trying to reach something on the countertop and fall over backwards and crack her skull on the stone tile. I knew my happy baby luck was going to run out soon, so I went for it. I huffed and I puffed and I shoulder-checked that door until it broke free. It was actually easier than I thought it would be. Adrenaline, anyone? Charlotte had just decided that the toilet, with it’s great echo lid-slamming noise, was the place to be. She greeted me with a proud cheer and was only mildly disappointed that I shooed her away and shuffled her out of the room.

Strangely enough, the handle didn’t pop out or splinter free of the door like I’d expected. Instead, the doorframe split down the center of the hole the door latched into (the metal plate was AWOL, thankfully). It even managed to tear some of the drywall off when it snapped loose.

Impressive, no?