The theme of this blog is “One writer’s journey through life and time.” Well, then, this post is a peek into today’s journey—I’ll write about my life and time in real time, what is happening while I draft this post.
I am sitting in the dentist’s office. My husband has a dental appointment, and I am now his driver. His Parkinson’s Disease has advanced to the extent that he cannot drive for any distance nor in any stressful traffic situations. As a result, he drives only close to home, and I take him to all medical appointments as well as to most of his exercise classes. He gets friends to drive him to other activities, and we have an agency caregiver drive him when I have other commitments. This has been going on for over a year.
I have found that writing is a very portable activity. My little HP Spectre laptop can go anywhere and keep me productive for an hour or two while I wait. If I think I’ll be gone longer, I take the power cord, but for most activities, I can rely on the battery.
Of course, there are interruptions. Just now, I had to stop when the alarm on his pill dispenser went off, reminding me to take my husband’s medications to him. The dental hygienist hadn’t quite started, so the interruption caused no one any trouble.
The dentist’s office doesn’t have free wi-fi, so I am confined to what I can do with my laptop’s hard drive. But I keep drafts of my posts in Scrivener, and I draft my novel in Scrivener also. So there is a lot I can do.
(If I had my phone, I could try to figure out the hot spot option, but I forgot my phone in the car. So I will focus on what I can do on my laptop.)
When I finish drafting this post, I will turn to my work-in-progress. I have drafted 27,200 words so far, and I hope to hit 30,000 by the end of August. (I’m writing on Monday, August 28, so there is a good chance I can do it—particularly now that I have declared my goal to the world, making in more likely I will follow through.)
So this is my Monday—a wait in the dentist office, which will be followed by a wait at the gym while my husband exercises. (The good news is that despite Parkinson’s, he exercises most days of the week.) Tomorrow will bring a trip to another exercise class, plus maybe we’ll have lunch out. And Wednesday (the day this post goes live), we have another drive to another exercise class, with maybe another lunch out. With all this chauffeuring, it is fortunate that my writing is portable.
And after drafting this post, I still have 94% of my battery left. That should be plenty to last through the rest of the dentist visit and the exercise class.
How is your day going?
Well my day was spent driving a lot. I drove to Laurie, Missouri with a friend to attend a quilt trunk show. I was amazed to look at the longarm skills the presenter showed us in her quilts. After the trunk show J picked up Bruce to drive to the cancer center at Osage Beach to meet with the radiation oncologist. Just like you, we often eat out when we have medical appointments. I guess that is one advantage that we don’t have to cook as much. I’m glad Al is still able to go exercise. Happy writing to you while you continue being Al’s Uber driver.
And I’m glad you can get to quilt shows, Robin.
Cheers, Theresa
Really well. I’ve edited my book draft three to four times. Now I need to do it again … 3-4 times or more. Working on the cover, and back cover info. Happy Day!