God have mercy…

I wrote my quota yesterday (2500 words, scattered through three chapters of the current project, Gods and Monsters, bringing total word count up around 63-65K words).

But I am distracted again, today.

I have reason.

There was a hit and run just about forty yards from my driveway, this morning.  Big rig hit a kid waiting on the bus.  I don’t have a whole lot of information, but I’m not focusing well.

Wonder why.

I’ve heard half a dozen things: that the driver has been caught, that they haven’t; that the kid has passed on, that they are still in critical condition; that the kid was a 10 yr old boy, that the kid was a small girl…  Nothing is concrete.  Just that there was a horrific tragedy happen just a little ways down from my door.

I can’t do anything.  I can’t do anything for the parent who may or may not have lost a child.  I can’t focus enough to write.  I can’t scrape up the motivation to get up and do things for my family.

All I’m doing is waiting to hear concrete facts of what happened at 7:00 this morning, just a little ways east of my house.

And praying.

Update: The child was an 8yr old girl.  She didn’t make it.

It’s easy.

Not the writing, not always (thought it usually is, for me).

No, getting knocked out of the groove.

Last week, I hit a block.  I started a chapter for the current project, but wasn’t sure where it fit, or why that character had introduced themselves at that point.

I could not do any more work for a while.  My brain felt like four mice on an exercise wheel (with a fifth riding the outside going whee!!!!).  So I started re-reading what I had done, editing, and adding more details here and there (and a scene in other places).

And then, this morning, I had a dream just as I was waking, and it fell into place when I woke.  No, don’t remember the dream.  Just remember why the character appeared, and what purpose he was going to serve.  And was just starting to get stuck into the writing groove when a headache hit.  And then the phone rang, just as I got breakfast/lunch fixed so I could take some aspirin.

School was calling.  Kathryn’d taken a tumble down the bleachers before school, and had hurt her hand or wrist–they weren’t sure which, or how bad, but she wasn’t able to write.  I’ve been keeping an eye on her, today, and it seems like she’d hurt the outside edge of her writing hand.  Right where it rests on the desk when she’s writing.  It’s bruised.

Her wrist seems fine, unless she bumps the bruise, which sends pain shooting down her pinkie, and up through her wrist into her arm.  I don’t think she needs to go to urgent care for x-rays, based on her behavior and the lack of swelling.  And based on the fact that she’s been able to draw and write after I gave her a dose of Tylenol.

But I haven’t been able to get back into the writing groove since.  I’ll try again later, after the kids go to bed.  Because I’m in the home stretch, now, and I know where the book is going and how it’s going to get there.