Flu and writer’s block

Unfortunately, despite the vaccination, I am afraid our little boy has come down with the dreaded flu; even on Motrin, his fever was at 104 this afternoon. Scary. It promises to be a long night, filled with every-three-hour temperature checks and medicine doses. I should have known it was coming; after all, it is spring break. 😉

Before I was aware of the high fever situation, though, my sweet husband kicked me out of the house this morning to go write, and I’m glad he did; I was feeling a bit stuck, which always makes me nervous, but by sitting through it and doing a lot of staring into space (and writing in fits and starts), it finally started flowing again. It’s funny; no matter how many times I work through these things, it always comes as a surprise when I sit there and bang my head against the wall and it eventually shakes free. (The writing, I mean, not my head.) My word count is a hair over 26,000 right now, which puts me at approximately 1/3 complete. Which is a good thing, since my dance card is looking rather full right now.

I also spent some time at the allergist’s office Friday putting together a calendar for getting the books I’m under contract for finished comfortably. (Thank God I had the laptop with me, or I’d have been forced to read tabloids for forty minutes instead. Hmm. Perhaps I’ll leave the laptop home next time.)

Anyway, assuming I did the math right (must recheck this, come to think of it), I was pleased to discover that even writing 4,000 words a week, with a week off for spring break, I will still finish with time to spare. I’ll put in a more aggressive weekly goal, but I like having that “minimum” there to make sure that even with a few chaotic, potentially disease-ridden weeks tossed in there — and, heaven forbid, some rewriting — I’ll still finish with some time to spare. And I won’t have to chain myself to a desk to do it. Unless, of course, we get hit by some four-week flu virus or I break both arms and can’t type. But that would never happen. Right?

Right? (Please let me be right. Please.)

Anyway, enough of the morbid thoughts, and back to the topic at hand. Okay, I’ve forgotten the topic at hand. But I will report that this afternoon, to celebrate blasting through another mini-writer’s-block, I stopped by the library, where I picked up A Year with the Caliph, a book about a woman who moved to Casablanca (which I subsequently discovered I already own), a book on lighthouses (I’m looking for a good lighthouse story — if you know of any, please tell me) and a book called Get Out of Your Own Way, which is supposed to help people “reach their full potential,” etc. I don’t know why I read these books, but I do. Hope springs eternal, I guess? I picked this particular one up because, like most writers, I seem to be my own biggest obstacle some days. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’m off to check on my little boy’s temperature again. I hope you all escape the flu, and that you had productive and glorious days!

Oh — and for some reason, there’s a june bug colony on our front yard. The buzzing is so loud it sounds like you’re standing next to a bee hive. Very strange — there are hundreds of them, but only in my yard. I wonder why?