I was emailing back and forth with my current memoir client last night and mentioned something about our scheduled meeting on Thursday in Chicago. Her response was a little baffled, and I suddenly jolted to the fact that I was supposed to be in Chicago not Thursday but Tuesday. As in today. Nine hours later I was on the airplane, and now I'm here, but somewhere over Kansas, it occurred to me that I came very close to a major screw up that would have righteously pissed off my client, wasted a chunk of her money, and ruined the honeymoon rapport I've cultivated with her and the other players involved in this project. Not cool.
When my daughter was little, she coined the term "book head" to describe the state of mind that has me staring out the car window, saying "sure, honey" when someone asks me if we can buy a horse. No matter what Gary says to start a conversation with me when I'm in book head, my response is a variation of "Did you say something?" A while back we were reduced to using coffee filters as toilet paper for two days because I kept going to the store and forgetting why I was there. It's as if there's only just so much mental acreage and the imaginary campers pitch tents on all of it.
I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to do it (suggestions welcome!) but I need to find a way to reality check myself a few times a day to make sure I'm where I should be, mentally and geographically.
("The Great War" painted by Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte in 1964)
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