Yesterday was a really wonky day. I actually hadn't planned on getting much writing time in for the BIAW because my husband wanted to take the family out for the day, probably hiking. I wasn't complaining--I'd already put in some good time with the writing this week, and I can really use the exercise. I only wanted to make sure the mailman got here before we left the house (see previous post).

So the kids were out playing, I was downstairs typing my work from the previous day into the computer, and my husband went upstairs to take a shower before we left. Then he came downstairs and told me we weren't going anywhere. Apparently our water heater had just bought the farm. Of course, the first words out of my mouth were, "And how much is this going to cost us?"

So much for hiking. The kids went next door and stayed with my neighbor while my husband and I trucked on down to Home Depot to buy a new water heater.

Some good things did come as a result of this fiasco, though. My neighbor wore my kids out. Replacing the water heater wore my husband out. That meant the entire family went to bed early, left me alone downstairs, and I got a considerable amount of work done.

As I sat on the sofa, green pen and spiral notebook in hand and writing madly, I couldn't help but be amazed at how easily my summary for the First Draft in 30 Days worksheet 7 (summary of closing scenes) was flowing. Nothing, and I mean nothing, had flowed that easily and consistently for a long long time. Not since Irresistible Harmony.

Then it hit me. I was using a pen and paper, rather than working directly in Rocky (my laptop). And suddenly I realized that was my secret. That was the thing that got my muse talking. Because the initial summary outline of IH was written the same way. Pen to paper. Although, at the time I was doing IH, I didn't realize I was going to turn it into a book; I was just trying to get that dream down on paper so it would finally leave me alone. It was only when that dream turned out to fill over 2-1/2 70-page spiral notebooks that I thought it could be made into a novel.

So the family went to bed early, I stayed up late, and got in 6 hours of writing. And apparently my poor little left hand (I'm a lefty) is finally getting used to this, because when I finally went to bed my hand wasn't cramped and I had no new blisters to speak of.

And the only reason I went to bed when I did was because I knew I needed sleep. Otherwise, I'd have stayed up and kept going for at least another couple hours. But since today's the final day of the BIAW, I thought it'd be better if I saved that for today.

So I'm going to finish up BIAW tonight, hopefully finish that closing scene summary outline, then get back to posting once in a while on the bulletin boards I frequent and start visiting blogs again. I'm happy with all I've accomplished, but I've really missed everybody!