I am pleased to say that I did manage to write for an hour today, Saturday. While I have always managed to write during the week when the kids are at school, trying to do so on the weekend presents a few more challenges, not the least of which is a nagging feeling that I shouldn’t be taking any time away from our weekend family time. My solution to that problem is that I am trying to limit myself to just an hour on Saturday and Sunday each. We’ll have to see how that goes as the weeks go by.

The work is starting to slow down a little bit now. I think that the pent-up creativity and energy has now dissipated enough that I am approaching once more a more typical speed and ease of work.

But the real interesting and unexpected development is this: the main character of my novel is a chronic smoker. Now, I used to be a smoker a loooong time ago; I quit when I was just nineteen years old (For those of you scoffing that at that age, I couldn’t possibly have been a smoker, not so fast: I was already up to two packs a day by then.) Occasionally, over the years, particularly during periods of duress, I have experienced a mild craving for a smoke, but I’ve never given in. I think that’s largely because I also occasionally have nightmares where I dream that I’ve given in and am smoking like a fiend; I awaken from those dreams panicked and sweaty that I gave in, and inevitably sighing with relief when I realize it was just a dream. Strange, I know, but who can account for dreams?

The  real strangeness here is not in my dreams, it’s in my waking thoughts: This whole week, as I’m losing myself in this character who actually does smoke like a fiend, I have been experiencing cigarette cravings! How weird is that? We walked out of a bowling alley today, picking up our son from a birthday party, and someone was standing outside the entrance, smoking. That usually makes me grumble and grouse, often giving a very loud and very obvious cough so that the smoker will know just how much I hate having to walk through their secondhand smoke. But today, it was all I could do not to walk over to the guy and ask him for a hit! My, my, my…think I am taking my writing a bit too much to heart. Hopefully I can finish this revision before the cravings get any stronger! Interesting, though, very interesting…