I missed my deadline because of a bee.

Well…not really. Because my deadline isn’t until September. But I’m so behind with my writing, and despite my best plans for full days of typing, something always seems to happen to derail me from meeting my 2,000 words per day goal.

Take today for instance.

Lately I’ve been writing on my laptop out on my screened-in porch. (Basically to keep me away from the Internet. And because it’s beautiful out there.) This morning, as I do every morning, I went out to do a pre-writing bee check. (They like to hide out in the skylight windows in the ceiling. I know…then what’s the purpose of having the porch screened in???)

Anyway, for the past few weeks I’ve been lucky. No bees. Or if there were bees, my husband was home to “get rid” of them. Unfortunately, this morning my luck ran out and I spotted a yellow jacket. Now he was tiny, but I don’t get fooled by size. The tiny ones sting too.

Oy! What was I going to do? I need to write. I’ve been in the zone out on the screened-in porch. My muse likes it out there.

Decision made. I’d “take care of” the yellow jacket myself. It’s not like I’ve never “gotten rid of” a bee before. And I’d seen my husband get them out of the skylights hundreds of times. How hard could it be?

So I got the fly swatter – yes…that’s what my husband uses – and moved the chair under the skylight. The bee didn’t budge. I lined up and swung. And missed. I tried again. And missed. (Maybe I should have put on my glasses!) By my third try that yellow jacket had had enough and he flew at me.

Of course I jumped to avoid his stinger. Forgetting I was standing on a chair. The fly swatter went one way, I went the other, over the armrest, down to the hard deck below. I twisted my wrist, banged and cut my ankle, and landed hard on my left hip/buttocks area – which luckily has a protective layer of fat that prevented serious injury.

So I am writing this on Thursday afternoon, I’m sore, I haven’t written one word in my manuscript and there’s still a bee on my screened-in porch.

And now he’s mad.  

I hope your day is going better than mine!