I didn’t post last week.

I found myself on Thursday morning with no post ready and no good idea…

in fact, with no ideas at all beyond How, Oh How Shall I Manage To Do Everything Today? Because, you see, I’ve set myself the task of finishing Draft 1 by the end of March, and I’m in the middle of a big editing job, and I’m rehearsing three plays (my own Alice for the closing of the season, a school-play, and one as Nina’s assistant), and there’s the copywriting thing…

And Thursday last it all maelstromed together: a two-hour meeting with the editing client in town, the copywriting client on the phone, rehearsals with two different casts – and I hadn’t met my daily word-quota for three days in a row and was falling behind schedule…

So yes, I panicked the tiniest bit – and sacrificed the weekly Scribblings post on the altar of Slight Overwhelm. Well, the weekly post – and dinner.

Was Slight Overwhelm satisfied? I’m not so sure – but it was momentarily appeased, and I stumbled and galloped through most of the day’s agenda. I even wrote – though not enough.

Since then… I’d like to say that I’ve got all my ducks in a row – but I’d be lying. If they are still a bit all over the place, though, they’ve al least ceased to clamour loudly all the time. I’ve come to the point where I can call them up, and deal with one duck at a time. Finding again this article by Rachel Aaron was rather key to taming the Book 2 Duck, by the way (and thank you Emma Darwin for this!). Am I writing 10000 words a day? I wish! But I’ve gone back to a reasonable daily wordcount, and now the 31 march deadline for Draft 1 looks feasible again. With that off my stomach, I’ve found, the other ducks have stopped threatening to eat me alive. They are ferocious creatures, ducks. They smell overwhelm the way wolves smell fear…

Yes, well.

But things are looking up, as you can tell by the fact that I’m posting today.

And now it’s Thursday again, and there are rehearsals, and a costume meeting, and copywriting, and Book 2 – and so I’d better be done with this post and go mind the other ducks before they grow restless.

I’ll let you know.

How about you, though? Do you have this kind of day/week/any amount of time when the ducks mutiny? How do you deal with it? Do tell: I’m greedy for words of wisdom – and, if you have none, we can commiserate over tea.