Never Quite Enough Time
Not least, never quite enough time to do a proper blog post. Apologies for that. It’s all been very patchy, and more and more I begin to have sympathy for my Mum, who despite being retired is constantly juggling time to try and find a moment to get things done.
Where does it all go?
Since getting back from holiday (GOD I WANT TO BE ON HOLIDAY FOREVER) things seem to have hit the ground running. Lots of good things too – seeing friends, visiting family, catching up with people I love. I went walking for a day along the White Cliffs of Dover with a couple of mates, my phone constantly dipping in and out of France as it tried to find a signal along the route. I’ve done a fair bit of escrima, fixed a few things round the house, mucked in with a couple of mates with their domestic upheavals (I have opinions about bulbs) – it’s all been grand, basically.
There has also been work, and while I’m lucky in that I love both my jobs, it’s sometimes easy to forget just how exhausting it can all be. I write this aware that I have in the past forgotten so hard that I’ve wound up a total mess. The season of music gigs is upon us again, after the August lull, and both the venues where I work are already counting down the days to Christmas, and the day off Christmas implies.
An average working day when gigging is around 10 hours. I’ve done a few shifts this month that drifted into 12/15 hour shifts, and a lot on weekends, and it’s easy to forget that three of those in a week and you’re basically done. In the last few months, work has covered death metal gigs, world music, jazz, large choirs, bluegrass and an author event, which is always a surreal thing to work on while wearing my technician’s hat.
I’ve also finished writing a novel, whooooo! Took long enough. (Got very distracted by stuff.) It’s with my publisher now and I wait with baited breath for notes. My editor is phenomonally good, and her notes manage to hit that lovely balance between “I think you’re trying to do this…?” and “… so maybe it would be better if you did that?” in a way which brings joy to my heart. Since coming back from holiday I added a lot of words to the book, and then spent two weeks removing about thirty thousand of them. I am far better at deleting words than fixing words, and frequently find it quite cathartic. I figure if I won’t miss them, hell NO will anyone else care.
With the irregular juggling of hours, it can be hard to tell how many I’ve worked in a weak. Sometimes I can scribble a book for seven hours straight, and that’s grand, and the next day I’ll do three and feel knackered and fall back on filing and admin. Sometimes I realise I’ve done four 12-hour gigs back to back but because two of them were on a weekend, they somehow ‘didn’t count’ and I haven’t had a day off for a month. It’s a fun tangle, but still one that needs unpicking.
I would say that things are gently calming down. Perhaps they are a bit. It’s hard to tell. I keep looking at my calendar for clear days, and very rarely find any – but what I do find is all stuff that I’m excited to be doing. It just so happens that I’m also excited by the idea of spending a day at home in my pyjamas.
Although…
… Sunday night….
New series of Doctor Who!!
I’m already wondering which pyjamas I’m gonna wear.
