Today, gentle readers, I am cleaning out my laundry room. I’m sure many of you are aware that writers are not renown for their housekeeping skills. You know that scene in that horrible Stepford Wives remake where they all go to Bette Midler’s house and she’s a writer and the entire place is like a trash heap? That’s what my house is like. I know several authors will own up to that level of filth, as well. And if someone is a writer and their house is perfectly clean, they’ve either got outside help or a low word count. I’m sticking to that.
Anyway, my laundry room has gotten… out of hand. I’m going to show it to you now. I advise anyone with heart trouble or a nervous condition not look at the following picture:
Yup. That is what my laziness has wrought. A solid mass of dirty clothing at least two feet deep. I have to be straight up with you, there are clothes in there my kids have worn once and grown out of in the time since I last did a massive laundry room cleaning. It comes down the landry shoot chute (I are a writer) and straight into the pile, ne’er to be seen again.
So, today I’m sitting down here, perched atop the deep freezer, alternating between working on edits for Abigail’s January book (IN THE BLOOD, Samhain publishing, January 2011) and feeding the machines their due. I’ve got appropriately morose music playing (Tori Amos’s utterly depressing Boys for Pele) and a two litre of Diet Coke to see me through. I just have to be sure to appease the Old Gods of laundry, so as not to be consumed by the pile myself.
If I don’t return, be sure to buy up all my backlist so that I look more successful than I actually was.