Didn't get a lick of writing done yesterday. I was going to, but took too long to work myself around to it. Most days I can't just sit down and pull up the file and start writing. I have to check e-mail, surf a little bit, get my Diet Pepsi settled, etc. But yesterday I also made excuse to call a fellow writer--which is good, because writers need to talk to each other, but it also can be a way of procrastinating. And yesterday when I got off the phone all this other stuff started coming in, w-f-h and tutoring and publisher communications and family things. So I didn't even think about anything to do with my own writing yesterday.

At least I don't do spider solitaire anymore. That was a really great way to procrastinate, but it's awful for writers to even get into. Spider solitaire is the time-sucker from hell. And non-writers don't get it; they don't get why you start doing these little things instead of just pulling up the dang file and setting to work.

Actually, I don't get it either. I don't know anybody personally who just sits down and starts writing. I think most of my friends have given up spider solitaire; there's so much web to surf you don't even need ss anymore if you want to procrastinate. You could sit in front of the computer and read writing and book-related blogs all day, if you wanted. You could self-google, and google your friends and people you don't like, and you could check Amazon rankings for every book you ever heard of--all with your WIP file open but where you don't have to look at it. Why can't we just sit down and start writing? Or rather, why don't we? I'm sure we could all do it if we tried really, really hard.

And I'm sure there are a few writers who actually do sit down and work straight off the bat. In fact, I know there must be because when a WF and I were discussing spider solitaire a few years back, this other writer said (in what I thought was smug) disbelief, "You must have a lot of time on your hands!" Well, no, I didn't--I was using part of my writing time on spider solitaire.

Anyway. I have stuff to do this morning, but then I figure I'll pick up where I left off, which I think was retreading somewhere around pages 25-50. You would think it's bad to go back over pages that have already been drafted into a working condition, but something doesn't feel right about going on. And as I go back over these pages, I'm finding that I don't quite have a handle on the emotions of the scenes, and I wonder if getting a stronger feel for them will help me feel right about going on. Don't know, but we'll see how today goes.