Where I Am
Currently, (As of this writing. When you read this, I might be finished.) I am 73 thousand words into a romantic women's fiction novel that I started in April. (While on spring break working with my brother in the yard using the heavy equipment, and also writing a Regency romance. Don't ask me how I managed 6,000 words during that time.) It's a good book. I like it. It has enough twists and turns to keep the reader engaged.
I was working on it steadily enough through the summer, maybe three or four times a week, (you know how summer goes with kids) but then at the end of July, I realized school was coming on fast and I needed to get 'er done. I was Tweeting and engaging, and building up buzz across social media. (See, it's on my sidebar. Right there >>>) I was doing what I needed to do, in the zone, plowing through three and four thousand words a day. I had very strong feelings about this book. This book was going to be the book. You know, that one novel that would finally get people talking about me. I was almost finished. I had twenty-two days before school started. Finishing the book would be a piece of cake.
Problem is, every once in a while life throws us a blindsided curveball and we are hit so far out of left field we are out of the game.
Mike Wyzcowski
When I arrived to pick Monster up, she begged me to bring the cat home. I said, "If she follows us to the car I'll take her home and feed her and then we'll see what happens." *stern Mommy face* The cat followed us to the car, climbed on Monster's lap, settled down, and took a nap for the half-hour ride home. Once there, I fed her (poor thing was starving), she curled up on the couch and slept for two days straight.
We kept the cat. I fell in love with the cat. The cat is funny, and sweet, and just such a great little cat. She sits on the kitchen counter (drives me NUTS) and watches me do whatever it is I'm doing. She talks when I walk into a room she's in to let me know she's there. People say, "She's just a cat." No. She's not. She is my familiar. I love this cat. More so than I ever thought possible.
Crisis Hits
On August 9, Mike started throwing up. After every meal. All the time. I brought her to the vet the following Monday morning. (Don't judge. I thought she had gotten into the trash and ate something rotten.) By Wednesday (16) that week, Mike was in surgery for an exploratory because the x-ray showed something but they couldn't determine what it was. I thought it was a hair band. Monster leaves them all over the house.
All was going to be fine with the cat. She was in the doctor's hands. I could relax and finish the book. I had 6 days left.
Mike came home Thursday afternoon. I let her be until Friday night when I gave her the anti-vomit pill that I crushed up and slipped in her food. She threw it up. I gave her the pain meds in little plastic vials the doctor had given me. She threw it up. Saturday was the same. Only Saturday afternoon, she laid down on the windowsill in the front room and wouldn't budge. She may have had some kind of seizure (I think), and then crawled under the hutch and stayed there.
Cats always find a hole to crawl in when they know they're going to die.
I was very upset. I went to bed. Sunday for the cat was no better. She greeted me when I came downstairs, but threw up the milk. Mike laid down in the windowsill again and stayed there all day, pathetic and miserable. She had lost so much weight. She was starving and there was nothing I could do about it. I figured she would die that night.
I went through the Seven Stages of Grief, cried my eyes out, railed at God, and woke up Monday morning, fully prepared to find Mike stiff. I quietly crept through the house looking in her spots. I couldn't find her. I walked into the kitchen and there she was, sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting for me. She was back to normal!
I gave her food. She threw it up. I called the clinic and spoke with a nurse and a doctor to discuss her condition. They persuaded me the best thing I could do was to put her down. "But she was better," I cried. I told them about the kitchen counter. I told them how she walked out of the front room while I made dinner Sunday night.
At two o'clock, on the day of the eclipse, Monster and I took Mike for the long walk home. The staff was very kind. They gave us a room. The doctor wasn't quite ready for us. Mike walked around, sniffed everything in sight. She meowed (something she hadn't done since she'd been sick) and was acting like her normal self.
The doctor came in and I said, "I do not want to put this cat down. Even though I know that's what I said I would do. Her whites are still white and her pinks are still pink.) Which is what he told me the very first time he saw her. We discussed treatment options. Mike ended up with heavy duty shots of steroids, antibiotics, and anti-vomit medication. She came home and began to eat that night.
Drama Queen
I am a drama queen. I excel at it. Think Auntie Mame. However, I was so distraught over Mike, I completely shut down. I laid in my room for those two days that last weekend and cried. #MDF and Monster didn't know what to do for me. Thankfully, they left me alone.
Not only was I crying for the cat, but myself and my new book that would now not be finished and ready to publish by September first. This episode also threw off all the other writing I wanted to tackle as well. I've been trying to finish book 4 in the murder/ mysteries, as well as start on the next Regency romance. Now my schedule was thrown out the window.
Now, I know that my crisis is not the same as yours. I never intended it to be. And your next crisis I hope will not be something that I ever have the misfortune to bear. What I'm saying is, it doesn't matter what it is, it's personal to you. The writing goals I had set for myself were off schedule. I couldn't get that time back. Dealing with the cat was a priority. I set the book aside.
Would I do it again?
You bet.
#notamwriting
I didn't write one word from that first Thursday morning after I realized something was seriously wrong with Mike until a week after I made my stand and took her home.
I couldn't. I just didn't have it in me. And I knew if I did that I would write garbage I would only delete later anyway. It would be wasted time. And I hate to waste time.
Writing during a crisis is lunacy. Priorities are priorities. It takes great courage and strength of purpose to decide which road to take during whatever curveball hits you. My cat took me out. Never saw it coming. I wanted to finish my book. That didn't happen.
Bullshit of Life
When I say, ignore the bullshit. Just write. What I mean is, the everyday crap that we all put up with as writers. "Oh, you're home all day, you can drive for the field trip." "Oh, can you run to the market on your way home and pick up milk?" Just. Say. No. That time, those moments are set aside so you can rewrite the last scene you worked on. You need to get home and finish it.
That is my reality and THAT is the kind of bullshit you are meant to ignore. Doing either of those things would cut into my writing time. And that is something you will not do.
(However, you might begin to make compromises because of the extraordinary guilt that you feel. Yes, you will do the laundry if left alone for forty-five minutes. Yes, you will do the dishes before sitting down to Chapter Nineteen. Let them see you are at least trying to be better at keeping up with the bullshit of life.)
And don't get me wrong, I love my life. Dealing with the crisis of Mike made me realize how complacent I've become in certain areas. I needed to prioritize. And prioritize I did. Writing remains in the top three. It's who I am. It's what I do. Shouldn't I be treated like any other normal person with a full-time job even though I work from home? Would you interrupt a therapist if she saw patients at her home?
Crisis Over. Ignore the bullshit. Just write.
Dealing with a crisis, is like a story. It needs to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, to be any good. I'm finished with mine. Mike is doing fine. I'm working on several projects at once. Volleyball is ever present. Life is back to normal.
Right now, there are five loads of laundry on the sofa that have to be folded and put away. A 2400' square foot house that needs to be vacuumed. Toilets to scrub. Dinner to make, animals to feed, clothes for volleyball tomorrow, what is for lunch?
It'll still be waiting for me when I go upstairs.
Now, if I can only find a lawn guy to cut the grass.
Ignore the bullshit. Just write. #ignorebswrite
Robynne Rand (c) 2017
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