Yesterday, I had the most amazing idea!

Truly. It was a killer plot twist for my WIP and I could see instantly how perfect it was. How right. How clever. How utterly badass and organically woven into the very fabric of the story—as if it had existed all along and was just waiting for me to discover it.

Ideas this big, they don’t come along every day. In my case, they’re rare.

Actually, never.

Yep. In truth, I never had a clever idea, up until yesterday. I couldn’t wait to write it down.

But then, the meeting. After that, my boss. The QA server meltdown. Lunch at my desk. The four-dozen calls to coworkers for status. The code that wouldn’t compile and the bug on the test server. And suddenly it was 4:30 and time to hurry home and walk the dog and fix the dinner and fold the laundry and do the dishes and sign the permission slip and email the teacher and run the daughter’s bath.

And of course I always leave a block of time open at the end of the day for the Shame Ritual: that special time where I alternate between yelling at the kids to brush their teeth and chastising myself for whatever I failed to get done.

But finally it came: a quiet hour to write, which actually was only fifteen minutes by then. Well really five, because I spent an extra ten trying to find clean socks for my son. And then I sort of fell asleep.

But there’s always tomorrow, I say. Which is today.

Now if I could just remember that goddamn idea.