Think again. We all have days that remind us we’re not Queen of the chessboard. Days when we feel like we’ve been backed into a corner, we’re about to be taken off the board, and we don’t know quite how it happened.
Take Wednesday, for example. My “post-the-Clendon-entry” day. I’m not likely to forget it any time soon. Here’s how it went:
* 1.30am (Tuesday night) – got to bed after finishing the novel.
* 3.00am – woken by baby for a feed.
* 6.30am – woken by baby again. Gave up, got up. Sleep is optional, right?
* 8.30am – did the school run. No parking space. Gnashed teeth, grew horns. Still no parking space. Evicted tearful first-born from car to make own way into school. Guilty Mother syndrome.
* 9.30am – began formatting manuscript. Discovered weird paragraph spacing issue. Attempted to solve. Failed. E-mailed Clendon coordinator. Decided weird PS cute. Finished formatting.
* 11.00am – received e-mail from Clendon coordinator. Stop, she said. Go back to the start, she said. It must have this first little step, she said. Gnashed teeth, grew horns.
* 11.30am – reformatted entire manuscript. Baby in search-and-destroy mode.
* 12.30pm – began printing manuscript. Got to page eight (of 318). Out of toner. OUT OF FREAKING TONER????? Are you KIDDING me??????? Shook toner. Vigorously. Ditto printer. Gnashed teeth, grew horns. Still no toner. Braved midday heat and bought more blasted toner.
* 1.30pm – completed printing.
* 2.00pm – braved heatwave once more to buy packaging for manuscript.
* 2.45pm -collected first-born from school. Grumpy kids. Grumpy mother.
* 5.00pm – partner home. Hooray! Shot out in peak-hour traffic to courier. Lost mailing address. Gnashed teeth, grew horns. Miracle: found mailing address. Addressed package, sealed package. Discovered entry form OUTSIDE package. Decided I was OVER today. Gnashed teeth, grew horns, became screaming, wailing, hissy-fit monster. Beautiful, young, unruffled, disbelieving rep blinked at me, slapped packing slip on package, stuffed entry form inside. Oh. Right. Silly me.
