I've got a deadline on Tuesday. Unlike Douglas Adams I do not love the whooshing sound they make as they fly past. My affliction, procrastination, keeps me reading exciting books on the (vaguely related) history of Spiritualism, however, well into the time when I should have had the chapter half-way (at least) written up and ready for revision.

And so I am stuck here, with about a third of it left to write out and some revision still to do on the remaining, not to mention the tying it all neatly together in the introduction, aided by nothing but strong coffee and willpower (you ask me why I have no will power in daily life? This is why. It is all spent in a couple of evenings).

Now, usually I keep track of my word count in order to prove to myself that I am making progress. It is all an illusion, of course, in that a thousand ill conceived and irrelevant words count as exactly the same amount as a thousand brilliant, witty and insightful words. But any harbour in heavy winds.

That is why it feels very frustrating when my word counts, after countless revisions and rewritings and elaborations over a long day look like this:

9364 (yesterday's final word count)
9621 (oh, yes!)
9801 (I am brilliant!)
9841 (hmm, slowing)
9889 (slowing?)
10083 (no! rocking! so much! a myriad, yeah!)
10002 (oops)
9869 (I've spent three hours! how can it be less?)
9910 (sloowly)
9988 (sloowly)
9985 (dammit.)

It started out so well.

(I needed to spread the pain a little.)