A Million Words

Last night, Mike came home thinking that it was Pancake Tuesday, which is what they have in Ireland instead of Mardi Gras.  He asked if we could have pancakes for dinner just as I was rolling out the pizza dough (I tried to spin and stretch it out the first few times, but I've switched to rolling lately).  I felt bad about missing the opportunity to participate in an important cultural observance. The good news is, yesterday wasn't  Shrove Tuesday.  The big day is next week, so I have plenty of time to prepare and stock up on eggs.   As a result of this pancake scare, I just spent about an hour looking at pancake recipes on epicurious.com.  I wonder, is this too obsessive?  Have I gone over into the dark side of competitive housewifery?  Will I suddenly take out a subscription to Martha Stewart Magazine ?  Shouldn't I be writing instead?   But just think of the food that could be made!  I want to make Turkish Zucchini Pancakes and Buckwheat Pancakes with Smoked Salmon in

I wouldn't say that I have writers' block, it's just that I'm having a hard time getting back into things.   November was a very intense and stressful month at our place, but I still managed to crank out just over 50,000 words of a rough draft of a novel in those thirty days, along with a grant application.  It was really too much. In December, I made myself unnecessarily busy with holiday baking and things, and I'd just begun to recover from all that when my hard drive died beyond hope of recovery on January 11th. I'd backed up most of my work, but not all of it, and not often enough.   I've had my computer back for two weeks now and have reconstructed what I could, but I still haven't gotten back to work in earnest. I had planned to finish the rough draft of my NaNoWriMo novel, but I lost my scene list and besides I've been away from it for too long to just pick up where I left off.  Instead, I decided to re-work what I have already. I've gotte