What a 10k Day Feels Like

When I'm writing I generally can get in anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 words added to a story. It really depends on how I'm feeling, what's going on around me, is the day sunny or gloomy, etc. Some days it's a lot less or none at all because life happens.

A few days ago I had one of those days where I was so completely involved in the story I just didn't notice anything else. I can't tell you what the weather was like, if I remembered to feed the cat and dog, or if I actually ate a meal, myself. I was in the zone and the words were flowing. It was awesome.

Until I looked at the clock and saw the time. Now, I am basically retired and live alone except for the aforementioned cat and dog. My kids are all grown and my husband passed away three years ago. I live in an old motor home parked in my sister's yard, but we can go days without talking to each other because we're both kind of introverts. The point being, it's normally no big deal if I stay up all night and sleep all day. But, I was scheduled to babysit my granddaughter the next day. Well... the same day actually, considering it was 1:30am.

No problem, I'll just save and shut down the computer, right? Wrong. I hadn't finished the scene I was working on and the words were still coming, so I had to get them out. I think I finally hit "SAVE" for the final time about twenty minutes later. The cat and dog are looking at me like "You gonna feed us today, Mom?" Kiko took the closing of the laptop to mean it was time to rub all over everything in sight - the table the laptop sits on, the water dish that's empty, the little heater I had going (cat hair really stinks when it gets hot) - and Mija thought she should go outside one more time and began bouncing by the door.

Once they were taken care of I realized my stomach was utterly empty and protesting that fact quite loudly. I wasn't going to sleep if I was under the influence of hunger pains, so I fixed a small snack. I made sure I had everything shut down for the night and went to bed.

And stared at the ceiling.

For hours.

It felt like I'd just dozed off when my daughter called at somewhere around 7:30am to inform me she DIDN'T need me to babysit. Oh goody. I can sleep.
Or... stare at the ceiling some more and wish.

And that, my friends, is what a 10k word day feels like to me.