Each day I have about seven hours to myself. [Message to mothers of young children currently neck deep in sippy cups and face wiping and tantrum calming: they do eventually tie their own shoes and trundle off for a good bit of the day! Unless you homeschool, in which case there is hopefully still shoe tying but less trundling off.]  We have just the one car right now so I usually drop everyone where they need to be by 8.30 and then the day unfurls before me, open to my whims until 3.30 pick up time. Of course, a good portion of the time goes to functional showering-laundry-grocery-errands-clean-housey-volunteering time but I have been mulling over what to do with those remaining elective hours when they happen. 

More and more I just feel compelled to write, write, write. (No, not my dissertation silly. Who feels compelled to do that?) Something about the stillness of the house and my still-fairly-empty calendar has awakened this long latent but always faintly nagging nudge to tell stories and spin the threads of my thoughts into words on paper. 

But then I think can I do this? Is this allowed? It feels (a) like I'm playing a role with this fairly sarcastic running commentary in my head complete with "air quotes": Here she is, "fiction writer" Annie sitting down at her computer in her "writerly chair" embarking on her "novel/story/saga."  I could barely tell G what I've turned my attentions to (he who knows me best), not because he would belittle it but because saying it out loud sounds so preposterous that I'm tempted to belittle it and brush it under the placemat. Oh, you know, just my little writing thing. And (b) it feels indulgent, like anything that I want to do this much should be left until after drudgery, dessert after finishing the spinach. I suspect I need a note from someone authorizing me to do this. Can this be my life or am I sneaking around behind the back of my life? 

I can feel some feathery hopes rustling around my soul about this, though. We'll see.

p.s. You might notice I've turned off comments on my posts. I am increasingly having to delete spam that is getting posted on old posts and I think maybe people are just generally less inclined to comment on blogs anymore. I do, however, LOVE emails and pen pals so I would love to hear from you if you'd like to say hi or chat about anything: basic (dot) annie at gmail (dot) com.