Give a Busy Person a Job ...

Maybe one of you can explain something to me. Why is it that the busier I am, the more I get done? Doesn't it seem like the opposite would be true? Shouldn't the opposite be true?

I have a deadline in less than two weeks, and no, I'm not ready to send the book to my editor yet. I have every intention of getting there, though. I just may run a bit short in the sleep department before I'm through.

A year ago, I agreed to teach an online class this month, which requires that I post two "lectures" every week and answer questions as they arise. There have been lots of questions this month, and I'm not the kind of teacher who answers briefly. I want to make sure I've explained myself clearly, so I tend .... I won't say I tend to ramble, but I do try to be thorough.

I've had some family issues to deal with. Nothing, thank God, having to do with my kids or the Incredible Miss Abigail, but still troublesome, and they've led to more phone calls in a day than I'm used to taking while I'm supposed to be working.

Two weeks ago, the galley proofs for PEPPERMINT TWISTED arrived on my doorstep with instructions to read the proofs carefully, check for typesetting errors, and return the package to my editor in NYC by last Friday.

I'm heavily involved in the administration of a non-profit organization, and the president is out of town this week, which means that in my spare time I've been drafting statements and approving things I generally don't get involved with on a daily basis.

So why is my writing humming along so well? Why can I write two chapters a day without really breaking a sweat (now that the cooler in my house is fixed and the temperature no longer hovers near 100 inside.) Why do I get so much more done when I have a lot to do?

This isn't the first time I've noticed this phenomenon at work. Years ago, while working at the Evil Day Job 50-60 hours a week, I consistently wrote 3-4 books every year. I was one of the most prolific authors I knew. I wrote through everything that came my way -- family issues, surgeries, moving, kid troubles -- and I never seem to have any real trouble getting a book done. That's not to say that my manuscripts always arrived sharp and crisp on the morning of my deadline, but I wasn't ever far off.

Then (joy of joys) I quit the Evil Day Job to write full time, and what happened? I suddenly developed "issues" that had never plagued me before. With all the time in the world to write, I suddenly found myself spending less and less time at it. A thousand excuses presented themselves every day and, unlike the excuses that came my way when I worked the EDJ, these suddenly seemed Too Important to Ignore.

Don't get me wrong ... I haven't been a complete slug since I quit the EDJ and became a fulltime writer. Every so often, a month like this one comes along and nudges me back on track. But what I don't understand is why it's so damn easy to slide off track again, and why I never feel myself sliding until I'm avoiding my work in progress to catalog my DVDs -- again.

On Monday of this week, an 18-year-old man worked an eight-hour shift at his job, leaving work at five o'clock in the afternoon. At six-thirty, he parked at a shopping mall no more than ten miles from my house and began killing people. He met two people in the parking lot as he walked toward the mall and shot them both. Just inside the mall doors, he encountered a woman and shot her. He made his way a few feet further into the mall and shot five people inside a gift shop. He wore a bandolero filled with ammunition and carried a backpack, also filled with ammunition and carrying a second weapon. An off-duty police officer from a city 40 miles away, just leaving a restaurant after an early Valentine's Day dinner with his wife, engaged the shooter and kept him busy until local police could arrive. By the time it was all over six people, including the shooter, lay dead. Four more were transported to local hospitals in critical condition. Many people around the city have been in shock since this happened, and I guess I'm one of them. I'm not one of those carry flowers to the site, tote my candle to the library and hold vigil types, but I am struggling to make sense of it all. I just tend to ponder these things on my own. Speculation is running wild, of course. It always does when we're faced with a case like this one. Rumors flew as the story was unfolding, and the press reported it all. It took a while to figure out that the "second gunman seen running from the mall, wearing a black trenchcoat" was a figment of someone's imagination. Reporters standing next to each other and sharing a microphone reported conflicting information, making it obvious that nobody was actually listening to what anyone else said. Now, three days after the shootings, the shooter's motives are still unknown. If anyone does know what set him off, they're not talking. Was this young man, a Bosnian refugee, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder? Was he out for some kind of revenge? On last night's news, a woman who had fished the same spot as the gunman in the past recalled that he got upset when he saw someone herding rats. He was concerned that the rats not be hurt because they were living things, and you don't hurt living things. So how does a kid who wants to protect rats from harm turn into a cold-blooded killer? The young man's parents are devastated. The local Bosnian community in the city is in shock. Most people realize this is an isolated incident--one young man with issues--but there are a few who are angry with the Bosnian population of the city, as if they expect the entire group to rise up with shotguns at any moment. I guess situations such as this one make us all go a little nuts, present company not excluded. I just couldn't let more days pass without expressing my condolences to the victims and their families. My heart goes out to them all.