Tuesday, August 22, 2006

A Hell of a Time to Quit Smoking

I am a bona fide moron.

I haven't smoked in two weeks. Most of that was being sick, granted, but I was holding out hope that I was finally over the last three cigarettes a day thing. Hope springs eternal, or so they say.

Bullshit. That fond wish lasted until yesterday. Until yesterday, I had a life. Until yesterday, I had open spaces on my schedule. Until yesterday, the craving hadn't hit me yet. Everything was grand until I checked my email.

Then I almost passed out.

Not only did I get rid of the new erotica series, BUT I sold Asphodel. Do you realize what that means? It means I am GETTING PAID TO KILL ELVES!!!!!

As soon as that thought hit my mind, my fingers twitched. I darted a look at my schedule. I have 15k to write by Friday. I work Wednesday night. Now I have to reformat not one, not two, but EIGHT 150k plus books from Wordperfect to Microsoft Word -- via Wordpad -- and save them to .rtf files. Then I have to make my rounds on the readers' loops, do some promotional work, maintain my websites, get some editing work done, work on Darkshifters....

My fingers twitched again.

That means I'll have to forgo sleep, chugging endless pots of coffee and curtailing my social life in an effort to meet all these deadlines! That means I'll be even MORE sleep deprived than usual by Saturday. That means my mood will deteriorate even further.

Twitch. Twitch.

Wow!~ I have to update my websites and get ready to plot out a new, bigger promotional strategy. I wonder how many of the readers from the loops I already frequent will make the switch to non-erotic high fantasy? Is it possible? Man! I'm going to have to KILL myself to get enough word of mouth interest out there!

TWITCH.

I frowned. There was no beer in the fridge. The cats were already gnawing on my shoes, hoping they would miraculously transform into Little Friskies. The dust bunnies floating across my hardwood floor were large enough to challenge the Doom Bunny for supremacy. Obviously, I would have to plan my strategy carefully or I'd never survive the week. The dustbunnies were easily handled: I called someone to come clean my house. The beer and cat food, however, posed a more serious problem.

I would have to leave the house. Although I could survive off of pizza, I wasn't certain that it was a habit I needed to encourage among the cats. So, I grimaced, threw on my shoes, and got into the car.

TWITCH! TWITCH!

Question: why are there always cigarettes next to the checkout lane in grocery stores? That's so not fair! Standing in line with a case of Rolling Rock and a twenty five pound bag of Little Friskies and a twelve pack of canned food, the cigarettes were calling to me like sirens on the rocks.

TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWITCH!

Sigh.

Oh well. At least the nicotine enabled me to meet my first deadline. I'm off to try and hit the second one.