WHAT A DIFFERENCE AN HOUR MAKES….

A week is a long time in policitcs, so the saying has it. A week being made up of 168 hours, as we all know.

Many moons ago now a new neighbour moved in. I’ll call her Jane. I was in awe of her from the moment I met her. For a start she always looked elegant and immaculate (unlike me). For those of you old enough to remember Margot (played by Penelope Keith) in the Good Life, then that was her. For those of you not old enough then no doubt you’ve seen the countless repeats. Jane  was/is housepround (unlike me). Her home is always immaculate, as is her garden (unlike mine). Back then she had two small children (as I did) and an ailing mother to care for (ditto). She also had a husband (I had one of those as well – still do) and she worked part-time (unlike me). ‘How do you do it?’ I asked. ‘How do you fit it all in?’ ‘Easy,’ she said. ‘If you have a lot to do then you get up an hour earlier than you normally would. You’ll be surprised at the difference that hour can make.’ You know that feeling you get when you know you’re beaten – like being sat next to Joanna Trollope and trying to look elegant and thin?….well that. So I never tried.

Until now. Edits on my first full length novel, EMMA, arrived a week ago and I went into a flat spin.

I’d been expecting them. My desk was more or less clear. I’d got all my admin re short stories and the like up to date. I’d been told there wasn’t anything radical needing doing (like taking a character out, adding a new one) so I was fairly laid back about it all. Then life got in the way. A family commitment I couldn’t get out of. Unexpected illness. What to do? I remembered Jane’s long ago – and I’m talking decades here (must be a slow learner!) – advice and decided to get up at 6 a.m. instead of my usual 7 a.m. When I get up at 7 a.m. I stay in my jimjams while I make and eat breakfast and my husband and I (how queenly that sounds!) watch a bit of breakfast TV. My husband is not, by nature, an early riser. So …..at a few minutes to six this past week I’ve found myself in the shower. Into something comfortable, a cup of tea, and I’m good to go on edits, aren’t I? And goodness me, how easy it has been to get into this new regime. Especially with the weather being so hot, hot, hot. My writing room window faces south so by midday it has been impossible to work in here anyway. At 6 a.m. it’s peachy perfect. I’ve been editing for two hours without a break. But the man himself hasn’t learnt where I keep the coffee or the toaster yet but, that said, I’m more than ready for a break by 8 a.m. But I’ve been back at my desk by 8.30 a.m. and I’ve worked through until himself repays the breakfast compliment and brings me coffee and a biscuit at 11 a.m. I am, as I type this, just 60 pages away from the end of the first stint of edits.

And it’s got me thinking. What else could an hour be used for in my day? In anyone’s day really? Well, I have some research to do for book three in my trilogy and that involves the 1920′s about which I know not a lot. It also involves fashion which interests me more than the politics of the 1920′s will. So when these edits are done and dusted and I can get on with book three, my 6 a.m. stint will start with a bit of research into 1920′s fashion.

But I must be aware that ‘All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl’ ….or words to that effect. So I’m wondering if I can factor in a bit of what is so gloriously called these days ‘me time’ for a swim. Oh why not?

Next Wednesday I have a lunch date with two fellow writer pals, Carole Llewellyn and Michelle Heatley, booked in. At the Breakwater Bistro in Brixham. This will be our view.

I will be able to go with a clear conscience, knowing I’ve saved my hour to go and be with them and eat delicious things and drink a glass of something nice and chilled….oh yes I have.

So, an hour…..what difference would one make to your life – writing life or otherwise?