the space to write.

my final assignment can be sent off, at the very very latest, on wed 20th may.

even that is a little riskier than i would like.

d went out to a friend's house tonight. great, i thought. quiet time and space to write.

instead? i washed up. made tea. ate tea; put d's in the fridge for later. washed up some more (there was quite a bit left over from the night before. shush don't tell anyone we're dirty, ok?!) read facebook. sent a friend a message as she sounded miserable. read the blogs and jezebel. did some ironing (note: not all). took the bottom drawer out of the fridge to clean. updated my budget. texted a friend back and forth.

blogged. (but you have to blog if there's an earthquake, right?)

there was an article in mslexia a few years back, about how writers need a wife. and as i was standing doing my ironing, i really started to long for someone who would take one of the jobs off my mind. say the laundry, for the sake of argument. so i didn't have to worry about putting clothes into the washing machine; drying them; ironing them; putting the sods away.

don't get me wrong; d's pretty good. for a man. he's quite clean; totally capable of using the washing machine (he uses a longer cycle and more powder than me which bugs me, but for not having to worry about doing those loads of washing i'm happy to take that hit); washes up without being told; comes and dries up automatically if i'm washing up (i do that sometimes, but i'm happy to let the stuff dry on its own and put it away). and when parents are coming to visit, he cleans the bejesus out of this place while i wander round and say it's ok, they won't mind.

we both work full time. but i want to make a career out of writing. and to do that, i need to put the time in. right?

and to my mind, that means that i get to do less than half of managing the household.

but i'm such a control freak that i can't let go.

he now deals almost exclusively with the car. in theory, at least. but in practice, as i'm used to that kind of thing and he isn't, i either sit with him as he goes through it, or he runs all decisions by me as he's scared of doing something wrong. but that will get better in time, right? right?

i need to let go of some stuff.

i need to talk to him about this, not vent about it on the internet. but i need to get it off my chest, before i talk to him.

for the minute though, i think i need to get some sleep.

i'm not really asking for advice or sympathy, or anything really; i'm just venting. but if anyone would like to share any perspective, please do feel free.

---

In other news, I sent off my entry for this competition today. To be honest - I don't think it was good enough. But everyone keeps saying that Sue Moorcroft's critiques are astoundingly good value, and I couldn't resist. I'm hoping that I'll be able to extract use out of her critique of one piece to improve targetting of the rest of my work - if not my work in general.

I'm really looking forward to the end of my course - not only for the relief of pressure, but also so I have the time and space to look back at all my short stories, revise and edit them and send them off to different markets. They aren't doing me any good sitting on my hard drive, but it's not just a matter of sending them out and hoping for the best. If only.....