I’m all over today. In my head I’m darting off in different directions and can’t seem to focus on any one thing. City Slicker’s Curly would not be pleased. These totally random snippets of thought keep poking in, and I imagine this has to be a taste for what people living with ADD go through.

They’re the strangest thoughts, too. Thoughts about how I should stop having thoughts and should instead focus on stories, complete beginning, middle, end stories with arcs. But I can’t seem to get there. I’m too impatient for arcs right now. Instead, I have random memories poking about.

I remember when our mother took us shopping with her at a department store, and how Lea and I would pretend the whole store was our house. That we got to live in the department store, use whichever beauty products, clothes, shoes, table linens. Yes, I thought of sheets and canopy beds, and chandeliers even back then.

I’m thinking about their Halloween costumes, how we haven’t ordered them yet, or made any effort in choosing what they’ll wear. And then I think about the possibility that I might have to miss Halloween this year because I’m in LA on Friday Oct. 30, and if I have a meeting scheduled for that Monday, I’ll still be in LA and will miss it. I can’t miss it! I’m really looking forward to this.

I’m freaking out about vaccinations. I hate all the conflicting advice and research. Hate hearing the autism stories and the stories about children who died, as recently as last week, at our children’s hospital in Austin from the swine flu. If everyone stopped taking vaccinations, we’d have another plague. But when is it really safe for your taters to be vaccinated? At what age? And are the vaccinations proven effective? I hate all the questions it raises but realize just hating it doesn’t do me a bit of good. I’ve got to read up on all the research from several different sources and make our own determination. Which is awesome because I love adding things to my overly neglected to-do list.

I have baby gifts to send, wedding gifts to send, and magazine subscriptions to order.

I’m thinking about last night, at The Writer’s League, where an author mentioned that successful people make lists because just by making the list, you’re clearing out the clutter and worry and stress of having so much to do. There. It’s out now, on a page. So it needn’t be swimming about, interrupting any progress I’m making anymore. I can get to it next.

I know I want to begin working on my next book, but until I’ve completed all that needs to happen on the TV and feature film side of things, I’m hesitant to even go there. I don’t really adore the whole multi-multi-task so much. It’s much easier to juggle blog entries with a job that has nothing to do with writing, plus a single writing project than it is to juggle three writing projects plus a blog.

So there it is.

2 YEARS AGO: Unhappy Meal
3 YEARS AGO: Medium Rare
5 YEARS AGO: Anita & Me