Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

There are things I neglected during my novel writing month. Some of them may continue to be neglected, but I plan to welcome others like old friends.

First the friends I missed.

I missed playing piano with abandon. I continued to go to my lesson every week during May, after I had warned my teacher that my practice time would fall off the table. And while I actually practiced more than I thought I would, that old daring-do was gone. I made each practice count, because there were so few of them. And I rarely played for the fun of it.

I missed blogging, although in the beginning it was great not to come up with something writable every day. But by the end of May, I looked forward to writing something that wasn’t connected to what came the day before or had to fit into what followed. I learned blogging is good.

I missed reading. I started a couple books early on, but will have to go back and restart both of them. I did manage to read the Sunday paper with greater interest, since it offered shorter pieces that didn’t obligate me beyond a page or two. But I have no sense of accomplishment on the reading front for May.

I missed trolling on the Internet, because cutting down on that was where I found some of my extra time to write the required word count each day.

The thing I didn’t miss most was cooking dinner each night. Most likely our dining habits have fallen even more by the wayside, but at this point I’m not interested in mounting a great campaign to re-establish them. Earl was most accommodating about this, which is another reason I’m not eager to go back to the stove. I say we should each eat what we want when we want, and leave eating together for when we go out to dinner. It’s not like we don’t spend plenty of time together each day.

And, now that the writing project is over, what I miss most is the regular, sometimes daily, communication with my sons about our progress. We are meeting next Monday in Fargo, ND, to present each other with copies of our manuscripts and to celebrate our achievements. After that, it’s back to the real world.