This week isn't really going to plan, unless picking up children who have fallen downstairs and sunburning my ears on a beach on the East Coast (quite an achievement, let me tell you) count as being part of my writing plan.
There's really no room in my head or house for writing this week - a story I'm trying to complete for a comp is languishing untouched, because I'm too tired to dredge an original thought up when I come to it each evening. But the children are different this year to last. (They've changed since Whit Week, even).
The 3 year old might spoil some games, and the older two shout at him so often that the baby has begun to babble something that sounds unbelievably like his name; but they all play together. He isn't so bored as on a 'normal' day; he'll play in parallel with them, or if the 7 year old is in the grip of the right mood she will organise a game of pirates, captains, puppies or Octonauts and drag both boys along in the slip-stream of her imagination. (They have plenty of imagination of their own, to be fair, but lack the sustained focus to keep role-play going for long without her bossy input. When they have had enough, or don't play by her rules, she is heart-broken. I think I'm raising a control-freak).
When they play like this, and occupy the 3 year old, I actually have more slices of time to write than usual, if only I can leap on each opportunity. Having appeased my guilty conscience this week by scrubbing the dining room to within an inch of its life and washing, washing, washing (who could waste that sunshine?) I'm going to prioritise writing. By this time tomorrow, I want to have that first draft pinned down in longhand...as long as I'm not called in to fight pirates, build Lego cities or rescue a beached whale in the Gup-C.
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