Not avoiding anything here .....honest.

The dog doesn't want to go out, which is good as neither do I.  So I am busy cleaning.........honest.

The life of a part-time writer, part-time artist is always far too complicated.  I also think that being a woman adds to the issue.  I have friends whose other halves always get home from work and then go and do what they want to do.  Now in an ideal world I would write and paint all day and the cleaning and the cooking and the running around after the kids would all happen by some form of osmosis.

I have a schedule, do I stick to it? I try, is all I can say in answer to that one.

I think my biggest problem is that I cannot for the life of me work in a messy house.  I have an office, I should be able to shut my door on the mess and get on with it, but I can't.  The knowledge sits in the back of my brain and whispers to me until I have to get up and go and do it.  Of course this looks like I am trying to avoid working, by doing some other work.  This of course isn't true, if my house was magically clean all the time and everything was done I would have the ability to turn out at least one novel every other week and a painting every other alternate week................Yea I know I am lying to myself, there is always something to be found to distract me from my work.

Working from home takes discipline at the best of times and even with the best will in the world you can still think that the carpet you hoovered yesterday could just do with another quick run over, and the kitchen floor could manage another mopping as the dog has just run through it with muddy paws.  To be honest in this weather if I mopped the floor every single time the dog came in with muddy paws I would wear my mop out in a week (trust me that is never going to happen).

A thread on talkback made me smile, we writers collect notebooks, almost like other people collect stamps or pot pigs, or whatever takes their fancy, but we collect notebooks, some of us have them all neatly lined up on a shelf, knowing exactly what is in each one and having the perfect reference library.  Do I? Pfft, nope, but it's on the list, you know that list, the one that just gets longer and longer with jobs you really want to do, maybe I'll get it done later............after I've hoovered the front room carpet again, there's some rogue dog hair that I can see.........