Well, in truth I skipped just once so far. Last night. I came home late-ish after my longest rehearsals in ages… Hereabouts, they just moved the curfew from 10 to 11 pm, you see. This was yesterday, and my group was the first to take advantage of the new deadline. We celebrated by diving in madly and at length – so much so that I ended up driving home in an even greater hurry than usual, and cut it rather close. It was a small miracle that my car didn’t change back into a pumpkin before I was inside my own gate!

And then there was a late dinner, and at midnight the vaccination-booking window opened to for my age group – and this sort of thing is never overly easy in my corner of the world – and it had been a long, long day, with a more emotionally exhausting afternoon than I like – and by the time I was done, I could hardly keep my eyes open.

I suppose I could have soldiered on, and written something – but… well, I didn’t. I decided I’d just skip for once, and skip I did.

Is it going to be the exception in an otherwise full month of stories? Is it going to be the small fraying to unravel the flow? A tad melodramatic, I know – but I know myself. Also there is the fact that, technically speaking, I only need two more stories to complete the minimum goal of twenty flashes I’d set myself – and if that is not the dangerous, dangerous kind of thought the Demon of Procrastination likes so well, I don’t know what is…

Hm.

I’ll also say that, on a few occasions, I’ve been straying from course a little. In theory, my flashes are supposed to centre around one specific project – and in fact most do. Now and then, though – and especially during the last week or so – something unrelated will come to the fore, and clamour to be written, written, written! Old stories that never made it past the toying-with stage, old memories, the occasional surprise right out of the blue… When it happens, I just go with it. All else apart, one never know what can come out of a random story.

And that’s it for now. Eighteen stories in nineteen days so far. Shall I find some consolation in the fact that last year I began skipping a good deal earlier? Shall I make up for it by writing two stories one of these days? Shall I, instead of muttering of consolation and compensation, just yank myself back on track?

Ah well… we’ll see.