Forgive me, Agent, for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last blog post.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm a chronic sufferer of Lazy Writer Syndrome. Blades of Grass had been progressing quite nicely through the spring. Regular readers will know the ups and downs I’ve had with this project since starting it during last fall’s NaNoWriMo event. But, as the saying goes, life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.

I decided to sell my house in March, put it on the market in April, went into contract in June and began moving by the middle of that month. I wrote during all this, but not as strictly as I should have been. In my last post, I discussed the fact that Agent Steve is expecting to see the manuscript by the end of the summer. While I don’t foresee any issues with meeting that deadline, I do need to get my ass in gear now that I’ve settled into my new abode. I can procrastinate no longer!

The fact is this whole moving thing was merely an empty excuse. I could’ve written more. I could’ve set my daily word count goal and stuck to it. After all, each of those days I spent packing boxes had 24 hours in it. I could’ve found the time. And of course on top of already feeling guilty over that, I often find myself in this conversation…

That response begins vaguely enough that the other person doesn’t know how lazy I’ve been, but gives them just enough information to know when to expect to hear something more substantial from me. But the whole thing just makes me feel lousy when I don’t have a better answer. [Note to friends: You don’t have to stop asking me. But if you get an answer like that one, it means I currently suck.]

All that being said, I do have good news. The move is basically complete, and I have reinstated my daily writing goal. I generally like to get in around 1,500/day when I’m going strong, but I’m opting right now to stay at the 1K range. I’m not terribly far from the end of the book, and I’m working from a strong outline, so I’m hoping to have a solid first draft done by the end of July, which will allow me to shop it to my loyal early-readers for feedback and do a revision before bumping up against Steve’s submission timeframe.

My question is this: Am I the only sufferer of Lazy Writer Syndrome? Do any of you let yourself get too caught up in other aspects of your life only to realize that a chunk of time has passed and you haven’t typed the first word? Somebody? Anybody?