You are sitting comfortably at your desk holding a pen, ready to start that short story that has kept coming on and off since you got up this morning. The house is quiet, everybody is out and you are alone with your precious thoughts.

Just then, the phone rings! Will you get it or let it ring? But it doesn’t stop , so you give up and pick up the receiver. It’s your mum. ‘Not now...,’ you murmur, but, there you are, chatting for the next forty five minutes. When she’s told you the gossip of the neighborhood, the plot of her favorite new TV serial, and she has recited her latest recipe of a healthy casserole, she’s off.

But you are off, as well! You are trying to re assemble your thoughts but... at no avail. You’ve missed that spark of inspiration that’s kept coming and going since early morning. You know you shouldn’t have misplaced your notepad then – it should have been at the usual place- on your bedside table. But your daughter needed it to write down a phone number...

Well, you are determined to concentrate. The first paragraph is going fine. Now you’ve moved to the second one. You mustn’t forget it! Then, all of a sudden, it dawns on you ; the roast beef! You mustn’t forget to put it in the oven!

You obviously can’t stick to this writing task. Kitchen calls you. In two hours lunch must be ready. ‘Just in time,’ you murmur. ‘But what about my plot?’

‘I’ll get to that in the afternoon,’ you reassure yourself.

Your daughter brings her friends home for lunch. They turn on the Hi Fi . Rock’ n ‘Roll is loud enough to wake the dead!

Your husband then comes from work. The TV is on.

The day is over.

‘What about my plot?’ you keep wondering. ‘Well, it’s all about bad timing,’ you try to convince yourself.

But...IS it?

ENDS

329 wds