We have been back to real life for some days, though not really real life, because my honey was still off work, and we’ve returned in the middle of the school holidays, so basically we’ve all been in our pyjamas since Wednesday night.

I have short stories to write, many of them, and the only time I have to do it in is during Raeli’s school holiday, because that is non-novel time. Only a fool would try to write a novel during school holidays.

Do you see the fault in my short-story-writing plan?

I negotiated a chunk of writing time the other day and indeed managed to draft an entire short story in my 2 hours at the library, but while it is most excellent it is entirely not one of the short stories I was supposed to be writing. Also it was really quite short. Surely I have not forgotten how to write short stories!

Then there’s the reading. Immediately after Worldcon, my usually-teetering pile of books had turned into an exceptionally high teetering tower of books I DESPERATELY WANT TO READ RIGHT NOW. And at the same time I want to read nothing but books set in Ancient Rome this month. These two reading plans do not schedule.

My brain has kicked into domesticity gear, while all this is going on. It is planning decadent slow cooked meals involving pork chops and apples, and deciding that I really need to have a few new cakes in my repertoire, the kind you just whip up when the vicar comes to call, and did we remember all that quilting I have been building up towards, and promised myself I could do when I got home from Melbourne?

WTF, brain?

But wait, there’s more. If I was truly a good mother, I would have something better and more awesome planned for my daughter to do this holiday other than playing Angry Birds constantly on the iPad (we do it together, okay, it’s a shared mother-daughter activity!) and watching ABC2. (omg the lack of ABC2 in the Melbourne apartments almost killed us! Sweet sweet digital television, how we missed you)

Eh, she saw penguins this holiday. What more does she expect?

Tags: domestic goddess, mothering, short stories, writing