Do you actually, like, write?

I had a couple of hours of daycare yesterday morning, time for me to write, and I thought I'd try to figure out what I actually did during that time. To be fair, I did write about 2,000 words on my WIP (the Twelfth Night with talking seagulls YA story set here in my home city), but that's only a fraction of what "writing time" means for me.

So yesterday morning, I:

• read through my subscriptions to various writing-related blogs, noting items of interest to share with my online writing group
• discovered a newer agent to query and entered her information into my query spreadsheet for The Dharma Bum Business.
• discovered via the blogosphere that one of my favorite agents (I mean, favorite in the sense that I enjoy reading blog posts she writes and interviews she conducts...it's strange how writing becomes sort of a spectator sport at times!) is open for some types of submissions for the next month, and hey, my project fits one of those types!
• researched both of those agents for submission guidelines, etc.
  
• reread the first seven pages of TDBB that I include in my query letters with an eye to polish it up even more.
• added a comma, removed an adverb
• took away the comma
• used a thesaurus briefly
• deleted the whole sentence that used to be home to the adverb
• followed a complicated process of saving as text to, one hopes, preserve the formatting when pasting the sample pages into an email (this process was maybe seventy-five and a half steps long and involved some burnt offerings and at least a dozen languages)
• personalized my query letter
• sent four queries and updated my color-coded spreadsheet
• read several agent threads on a writing forum as research and updated spreadsheet
• noticed that my google reader showed that several agents had updated their blogs
• read blogs
• made coffee
• opened notes file for WIP and read through the summary of scenes I have left to write.
• realized that the last time I was writing, I completely and shamelessly veered away from the "outline".
• adjusted "outline". (okay, so the actual words I wrote were: "Oh no, I just realized this will all fall apart after that last scene, so...figure it out, all right? fix this. make it clever and shit.")
• made toast to go with second cup of coffee
• wrote 100 words of WIP
• whined to writing group about how hard it was
• posted excerpt, received praise
• wrote another 100 words
• checked email, found a rejection
• cried
• updated spreadsheet
• reread query letter, trying to figure out what was wrong with it
• took a spin over to Query Shark to look at query letters that *had* to be worse than mine. Instead, the entry is an example of a perfectly awesome query that I sure wish were mine
• found that as usual, queries sort of all look the same to me, especially after I read a few in a row
  
• got a headache
  
• cancelled tentative plans to become a literary agent's assistant
  
• wrote 500 words of WIP in a fit of pure, unadulterated genius
• read a tutorial on synopsis-writing, and then another one
  
• tried to start a synopsis
  
• banged head repeatedly into desk
• searched cupboard for jelly beans
• sent myself a test email to make sure it wasn't malfunctioning
  
• checked clock, found only thirty minutes remaining before I had to leave to pick up the kids
• read over the last 700 words of WIP, found them to be utter crap
• deleted and wrote 1000 serviceable first draft words
• whined to writing group about how hard it was
• checked clock, found that I was now going to be late to pick up the kids
• sped away in the minivan like SuperMom, except unshowered and tardy and with no plans for lunch.