The Joy of Being Empty Headed...

This is an exact representation of me
right now. Except I am not a turtle.
And I have no pizza.

It's week two of my three week break/skive* and I am relaxed. The story so far is that I'm trying to forget what my first draft of Book Three looks like, so I'm 'chilling out' and 'having fun' now that the business of December is over. 

And it has been fun so far. Not setting an alarm in the morning is a treat. No guilty urgency about word counts or the number of hours spent tinkering with a paragraph, is lovely. As much as writing is flexible, I've found the longer I've done it, the more time I spend 'tinkering'. Whilst the TV is on in the evening, when I'm driving somewhere, or when I'm cutting up veg for tea, a thought will pop into my head. I have to stop whatever I'm doing, find my phone, and type a garbled note to myself that I hope will mean something later. This also happens in the middle of the night. Basically, I never switch off. 

But now I have. Switched off, that is. It took a few days but it's happened. There's reasons for that. Not setting an alarm, for example, means I start the day in a much more casual way. I come to, rather than wake with a start. And when I've come to, I doze off again. It's great. Sorry for those back at work, but it's been a long time since I did this. I'm going to enjoy it.

Next, I'm forcibly filling my brain with other things. I mentioned books last week. So far, in 2020, I've read five novels and a play. I know! I'm well impressed with myself. Turns out, my Kindle is an enabler. I still have my rules though. I won't read anything I would have bought in paper form from a bricks and mortar book shop. So any new releases that I'm excited about, won't be getting downloaded. Instead, I've re-read a couple of books I'd enjoyed in the past, and bought a few others that I had been happy to let slip by. Turns out they were all good. Reading is great. Breaking news.

I am absolutely not
103 but this is great.

Finally, the big new thing in my life is the best distraction from writing ever. It's all-consuming and swallows up hours of my time without me looking at my phone once. I am aware I've moved into old person territory with this, but I honestly don't care. It's my new thing. I have become a fan of...jigsaws! 

Yes, jigsaws. Who even am I? The thing is, it's not even the jigsaw element of jigsaws that I love. It's the specific nature of the one I was given. I got a 2000 piece map of the world! This feeds into my love of maps and my excellent (even if I do say so myself) knowledge of countries.** I started it a few days after Christmas and soon realised this was going to be an absolute beast of a project. Just sorting out the edges from the non-edges took a good hour or so, but it flew by. My head was filled with the minutest of details that might help piece two or three bits together. Instead of global world events, the lies and backpedaling of the current government from their election promises, or that pesky Chapter 17 that just doesn't read right, I focused on two blue, seemingly identical chunks of ocean and where they fitted into the picture as a whole. It's the ideal task to force my brain to stop. And for whole chunks of time, too. I don't look at Twitter, use my phone, or scroll mindlessly thought New Look's new looks. It's nice to do something completely different. 

I was telling a friend that I'm all about jigsaws these days, and she responded with, 'How do you have time to do jigsaws?' And under normal circumstance I don't. But for this break/skive* that I'm in the middle of, it's perfect. And even though I'm still only on the edges and haven't made it onto the actual map yet, I've got a deadline to get it finished. A week today when I start back on with the book, I need to have it completed. I also have approximately thirteen more novels to read during my skive. I'm sure I'll fit it all in. I should probably start setting an alarm. Just to get the most hours from each day.

Have a lovely week, folks.

*Delete as appropriate.

**When insomnia hits, I have a tried and tested system to force me to drop off. I mentally list all the countries in the world, starting with North America and ending up - in a sort of clockwise arc - with Africa. It's surprisingly effective. I never make it to Asia before dropping off. Anyone need a snooze? OK then... 

Canada, USA, Panama, Mexico, Guatemla, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Belize, El Salvador, Antigua and Barbuda.......... zzzzzzzz