The Web Haunt of Ryan K Lindsay

I never make a point to write on the weekend. If it happens, that’s cool, but if it doens’t then I don’t feel bad at all. Every job has to have a weekend, or else you burn out and it becomes real work. Writing isn’t work for me, I still love it, so I don’t want to ruin that for myself. It’s working well so far.

This past weekend I didn’t do much. There was some tv, and a massive book fair, and a whole lot of nothing. At one stage my sister-in-law popped round and I found myself sitting down for five minutes to write two or three lines that had slid into my mind. Then I went back out to play with my nephew. I was very happy to leave the writing until this morning. I had my mind set on starting a very big push come Monday morning.

Monday morning was the start of my two weeks holiday from school. It was the start of sixteen consecutive free and easy days, and days which I had already spoken for. My holiday is from work, but not from writing. Remember, I said writing wasn’t work, it was fun, so what more could I want to do on my holiday? Keep up, son.

So I watched some tv with the lady last night and then went to bed to read for a little while. I was asleep before ten but only so that my 5am wake up call didn’t hurt too much. I wanted soft kitten upon my alarm, not razors down my throat.

I slept well and the alarm beeped out of my phone. I was confused, it was pitch black and I didn’t know what the noise was, where it was coming from, or what it meant. Then I got it, Sleep Ryan isn’t too bright a bloke, and grabbed my phone. I hit snooze and lay back. I felt great, I could get up and start my day perfectly. I felt so good that I knew I could have one more little snooze, just six minutes, and then wake up. I thought that but I know in reality it’s always different. The first wake up is fine, but I always snooze, and then the rest of the next half hour is spent snoozing trying to find that perfect wake up moment again. But it is gone, it saw my tired ass for the loser it is and ditched out of town on the next northbound bus. So, I didn’t snooze this morning I repeated “This is me exerting willpower” until I got up. Only took one and a half recitations. Pretty good all round.

I did the usualy 5am round up call. I snuck out of the bedroom with as little noise as possible and shut the door. I turned on the hot water system (we have solar hot water and I don’t like to waste it boiling water all night for no one to use), turned on my computer, turned on the ducted heating system and then got a little naked in the bathroom (woo woo!). By the time my shower ends I am usually awake. It’s good, I get time to think about what I might want to write, and I also think about what will be on my 6am toast.

I sat down before 5:10am and loaded up the trusty Word document. Before the hour was out I had a thousand words, and I had taken my cast and characters to the final setting. Still a few chapters to go, but it all ends at the beach, and at the beach they stand, or at least allude to heading. They’ll be there next chapter. It was a bloody good feeling, like rounding that hairpin at the City2Surf and seeing the finish line. It’s still a hard sprint to the line if you want to give it your all but that moment when you cross will be filled with glory, sweat, relief, and Gatorade. Lots of Gatorade when I finish this novel. And considering I want to finish it these holidays, if not this week, then I may very well need what plants need, electrolytes.

I’ve now added another 800 words to the total and completely saved and ruined a girl’s life in half a chapter, but it’s all in the name of art.

I’ve also managed to have four pieces of toast with peanut butter and jam simultaneously, woke my lady up with Weet-Bix and banana in bed, received some money, checked my favourite wwInterweb sites, eaten some muesli, listened/watched the Blues Brothers sing Everybody Needs Somebody To Love (I sang this at karaoke once and did the Aykroyd speeches and it went a treat, one coworker said it was possibly the greatest piece of karaoke he had ever seen, but he may have been sarcastic…), and consumed two glasses of water. Fine ass tap water.

The whole day still stands ahead of me at a pre-9am timeslot. I can get plenty done.

I get the feeling this might just be a great holiday indeed.

Posted on September 27th, 2009 by ryan
Filed under: Writing