McNaught

[desperance]

This is my thirtieth year in this job: in this exact same job, sitting at keyboard telling stories. You'll get no promotion this side of the ocean. But in all those days and months and years of working, I have - of course! - become expert in work-avoidance, in all those displacement activities that take me away from the keyboard, away from the job. There are those lies I tell myself - "I'll just go for a walk, half an hour, I can think about the next scene while I'm walking" - and the lies I tell other people, "No, I have to go into town to do this, I need the space/solitude/convenience/resources of the library/pub/whatever..." And then, every day, the things I don't even bother to lie about any more, "I'll just do the washing up/laundry/cooking/cat-cuddling first, before I go upstairs and get involved in LJ/e-mail/surfing, before I do any work..."

On the other hand, how many times have I said "I'm just going out to look at the comet, before I get back to work"?

Twice, by my count. In thirty years, that means it's still pretty fresh as an excuse.

The last time, I actually saw a comet. This time? Nah,: clear skies overhead, but a band of cloud on the horizon, sod it. Actually, that seems to be kinda common; wonder if there's a word for it?

So I came home, and look: here I am, almost working...

Comments

[julesjones]

I looked for it at sunset. I saw something small fuzzy and bright, that may or may not have been a comet, hiding behind a tree where I couldn't get a proper look at it. I have decided that this did not count as cat-vacuuming, in that I *did* get the revision pass finished and the draft emailed to my editor before I saw the putative comet.

I'm not commenting on how many times I went looking for the thing *earlier* today...

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Awesome icon. :)

[julesjones]

It's the Official Cat-vacuuming Badge for the rec.arts.sf.composition newsgroup. :-) zanzjan drew it for us a while back. We have lapel pins and all...

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Night before last I was in the California coastal town of Cambria (site of many of Christopher Fowler's novels), with a clear sky right down to the horizon.

So I looked for the comet.

I've come to the conclusion it's hiding. No sign of the blased thing, even though all the things that are meant to point to it were there...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I've come to the conclusion it's hiding. No sign of the blased thing, even though all the things that are meant to point to it were there...

'Zackly. Self-concealing comets: you come home fairly confident that someone out there has been lying to you, and then this morning apod posts this (http://syndicated.livejournal.com/apod/404949.html) and you realise that you should've been in Catalonia all along...

[devonellington.livejournal.com]

I find the mind puttering is enormously helpful in between the sitting-down-to-push sessions. I need a lot of time for my mind to wander.

Then, when I sit at the desk, I can cough up quite a bit in one sitting, and then, off I wander again . . .