The madness of writing

It's not a real job. Not a day job. Not a job in the dictionary definition of the word. You can't clock in and out or fill out a sensible timesheet - not really. If I did, mine might go something like this:

3:54am: dreamt of conversation between Bree and Graham. Thought about turning on light and writing it down. Decided to replay in my head a couple of times so as not to forget.

4:30am: lay on my back worried I would forget scene (see above)

7:05am woken by teenager thumping down the hall. Remembered something about a conversation between two characters. Kicked myself for not writing it down.

8:00am in the shower. Remembered conversation. Got out of shower and wrote details on toilet paper. Floor covered in puddles but essence of scene successfully captured.

10:00 wonders if time spent on daily cryptic crossword counts...

11:00 on the way back from taking youngest out to the horses, and in between remembering new road rule, was 'given' another scene. This one about dead bodies and missing bodies and had to turn off radio so I could listen to what the characters were saying. No pen or paper in car so some of it lost by the time I got home to write it down.

12:30 File has been open for an hour. Word count has gone from 97179 to 97233 to 97170 to 97350. The dump file has continued to expand.

1:00 finished looking over editor's notes again. Decided I disagreed about putting in Rachel's thoughts about her love life at this particular moment - there's no way I was thinking about sex when I was throwing up....

4:00 Wonders if watching back-to-back episodes of The Big C counts as research. And, playing computer solitaire

10Pm: In bed, electric blanket on, chores completed and the book is up on the screen, the curser blinking at me like the pointed finger of an angry aunt.

Sometime after, I drift off thinking about a scene and wondering when someone will invent an app that allows me to download all the stuff in my head straight to the laptop - even better if it can done while I sleep.