Out of Go-Juice

I met up with M. Todd Gallowglas (Michael) for our second weekly writing date last night.  It’s amazing how much it helps to have a writing buddy!  Last night was the third time we’d met up, and it was really great to hang out with my friend.

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out as well as the previous two writing sessions, and it’s all because I ran out of go-juice, on multiple levels.  I will explain.

First of all, yesterday was a longer day than most of my Wednesdays.  Melissa needed me to drive her to work that morning, which meant I needed to get up earlier than I wanted to.  It also meant my drive was longer than usual.

My workday was somewhat long.  I worked really hard to get a particular project I’ve been working on finished, and I had to troubleshoot some problems that were somewhat daunting, and I needed to give technical direction to one of our temporary programmers.  All these things were a bit taxing.

After that, it was the slightly longer drive to pick up Melissa, and a battle through traffic which involved an accident and road construction along the way.  After we got home, I had just enough time to grab my writing laptop bag and head back out into more traffic, to go to Roseville and meet up with Michael.

None of the things I’ve mentioned are individually taxing or terrible.  I don’t mind getting up earlier than usual.  I don’t mind driving Melissa to work.  It all adds up, though, so by the time I met up with Michael at the Starbucks, I felt a little bit exhausted.

This is not a simple story of defeat, though!  A little weariness isn’t going to hold me down!  I was determined to push through and add some words to my book!

As I said before, though, I was out of go-juice, on multiple levels.  In my hurry to get out my door, I didn’t grab the power cable for my laptop.  I opened it up, started writing, and discovered I had less than 20 minutes of electricity left.  My laptop was out of go-juice.

I’m saving my book on SkyDrive, so that I don’t have to worry about losing a machine and losing all my hard work.  I closed my laptop, and pulled out my phone.  Defeat was not an option!

But then I saw that I had less than 20% batter life on my phone, which generally means only a few minutes of actual use.  I managed to add another paragraph or two to my story, but that was it.  My phone was out of go-juice.

I was tired.  My laptop was dead.  My phone was dead.  So my Writing Wednesday ended early this week.

I said my farewells to Michael, gathered up my things, and went out to my car.  Wouldn’t you know it?  My gas gauge was sitting on “E” as well.

So last night wasn’t the greatest writing session, but it was still a good day.  Words were still added.  This is a marathon, not a sprint.  Next time, I’ll just have to make sure I have more fuel in the tank.

2 thoughts on “Out of Go-Juice

  1. Do you know meetup.com?
    I belong to a group on there called “Shut Up and Write!” – I’m sure there’s one in Sactown, or something like it.
    Basically, somebody finds a great venue, a bunch of people show up, say hi for 10 minutes, then write for hours, then check in a little about their work and go on their way.
    All kinds of different people show up at it. Tuesday we had: a garden book, a dissertation, a fantasy novel, a travel article and a memoir.

Comments are closed.