December is the busiest month

December is always a busy month for me. I was badly organised enough to give birth twice in December. My babies are about to turn thirteen and sixteen respectively and for a couple of months I will be the proud but harassed mother of four teenagers. As if that were not distraction enough, I have to host a couple of parties, cook lunch for twenty people on Christmas day, and clear enough space for my sister and her family who are coming to stay for five weeks. OK I know that’s not such a big deal but it challenges my limited domestic skills.
I always leave everything till the last minute, so this year I made a concerted effort to submit my new novel in November and finish the proofs of next years’ book in early December just so I could shop till I dropped, do battle with the twin demons of Chaos and Grime, sort out my ongoing drain problem and do all those jobs I only ever do when I’ve got guests coming. I’m not going to tell you what they all are because then you’ll know what a slob I am, but one of the easier ones involves degreasing my cooker...
So, I have a head full of to-do lists, cupboards filled to bursting with stuff yet to be decluttered and the panicky sensation that I have forgotten something vital, then yesterday I went and had an IDEA. This was a bit of a shock as I’m not much prone to these. It arrived unbidden in those murky moments between sleeping and waking and immediately drove everything else out of my feeble mind. I had a bath, came downstairs in my dressing gown and started typing. At some point I remembered I had to go to a drinks party and must not allow myself to be entirely seduced by this shiny, sparkling definitely-bestselling- quality IDEA that I did not need to have in December. I ran back upstairs, swearing quietly to myself, ran a bath, got into the bath, and only then realised that I’d done all that washing business already...
I think this proves that I am losing ‘it’ whatever ‘it’ is and that the best way to have a new story idea is to have no time for one, no interest in writing it and about a million other urgent things to do...