Busy Day
Copyright 2008 Diana Gabaldon
[This was originally a letter to a friend, later rewritten as an essay for a writers' magazine.]
The Best and/or Worst Day of my writing career? Geez. Well, I've been doing this for nearly fifteen years now, so we have a wide array of days to choose from.
There's the day I finished writing my first novel. Like giving birth, but no stitches, and you get to sleep as long as you want afterward. _Tres_ cool.
There's the day my agent called to tell me that of the five editors he'd sent the manuscript to, three had called back with offers. Definitely a Good Day--though in fact, I was so flabbergasted that I felt as though I'd been slugged with a sandbag, and went around feeling surreal for about a week.
There's the day one of my books first hit the NYT list--though I heard the news from my husband when I staggered off a plane from a three-week book-tour, and was therefore somewhat too fogged to thoroughly enjoy it.
"Yeah?" I said (as I recall). "Oh. Good. Who am I?"
Bad days. Hmm. Well, I distinctly recall throwing a basket-chair down the staircase a few years ago, while bellowing, "Will you all just LET ME ALONE FOR _FIVE MINUTES_!?!", though I don't recall the specific occasion.
And there was last week, when I arrived at JFK from a book-tour through Germany, Amsterdam, Sweden, and Finland, totally exhausted, and experienced forty-five minutes of being the ball in a game of Mousetrap--with half the pieces missing. (I'm _never_ landing in that place again, never!)
And then there's tonight, when I returned from a long day of booksigning at 11:30 PM--to discover that Room Service's "All Day Dining" ceases at 11:00.
Really, though, most days in a writer's life don't consist of Big News or Major Annoyances. Most are more like...
...one of THOSE Days, beginning with angst and trauma in the morning when the little one couldn't find her violin
and the middle one was so conked his father couldn't rouse him and
had to call for assistance (I have a secret method; I toss back the
covers and get him by the feet, then play "This Little Piggie" on
his toes. This aggravates him enough to get him upright and
snarling, at which point he can be levered out of bed and into his
closet), and the big one wasn't happy with the way her hair looked.
Having gone to bed at 3 AM the night before, getting up at 7:15 left me a hair short, even on my usual rations of sleep. I also ached in every limb, having fallen off the staircase the day before (don't ask; it had to do with the FAX machine and the fact that I'd been writing. I was still writing in my mind when I came down and‑‑apparently‑‑not aware that I couldn't levitate. Actually, I apparently _did_ levitate for a short distance, as I ended up on
knee and elbow some six feet from the foot of the staircase) and
freshly strained my shoulder reaching for something.
I rallied round, though‑‑found the violin (by the simple
expedient‑‑which drives everyone in my family completely mad‑‑of
asking "Where did you see it last?"), combed the big one's hair
into a ponytail (had to make her sit down on the edge of the bath
