My son stopped napping this week. Cold turkey. Granted, he’s three and a half. Napping was bound to end eventually. But I was living in sweet denial.

Why am I posting about this on my writing blog? Because nap time is writing time. Two hours of nap x five days per week = ten hours of writing! And preschool doesn’t start until September.

Which leads me to this ad, which I wrote several years ago during my first attempt to achieve some balance between children and writing:

Wanted: part time nanny for girl, three years, and boy, 6 months. Children are angelic, with the exception of an inability to share, a well-developed manipulative streak, and a long history of explosive bodily functions. Some light housework required, such replacing the bathroom cabinets and patching the stain on the living room ceiling, but only while children are sleeping, which they do at the same time for at least 20 minutes per day, guaranteed. Would prefer not to pay, as already feeling quite torn about not contributing to the household economy while spending so much on wine and sedatives. Also, mother raised two children in the backwoods while sewing their clothes and baking fresh bread twice weekly. In-laws value me solely for my ability to bear and raise children. In light of this, would appreciate it if applicant would refer to herself only as a “close family friend” in public. Please mail resumes care of Riverview.

Yup. An updated version of this is definitely going up on Craigslist tomorrow.

I didn’t cover library cuts in my most recent letter to Premier Campbell. This isn’t because I’m inured to the cuts. It’s because I can’t order my librarian-related thoughts into a coherent argument.

My high school librarian’s name was Elizabeth Hutton, and she was a huge part of why and how I became a writer. Here’s why:

1. Unlike the English teachers in my school, she was not required to teach me how to combine “the dog was red” and “the dog was big” into “the dog was big and red.” (I’m serious. We did pages of those. In grade 12.)

2. She’d lived in Africa. That was cool.

3. She showed me poems by Evelyn Lau. I’m guessing that if our principal had read Evelyn Lau’s poems, he would have whipped that book out of the school library before you could sentence-combine “that book is profound” and “that book is censored.”

4. She convinced me that my poems were wonderful. (This was untrue. However, as a beginning writer, confidence is everything.)

5. She wore long skirts and big pendants, which seemed very artsy and creative. I am still waiting for the courage to emulate these.

6. She made chapbooks of student writing. I still have them, although they are now excruciatingly embarrassing.

7. She suggested that not every page of poetry be surrounded by a fancy scrolled border, a useful piece of advice if I’ve ever heard one.

8. She taught me advanced placement English several afternoons a week for months, some (all?) of which must have been on her own time.

9. She taught me to answer multiple choice questions, possibly a skill even more useful than knowing when to delete a scrolled border.

10. She thought I could be a writer. Not an English teacher, an editor, an advertising copywriter, a newspaper reporter, or any other job I used to tell people I was considering, in order to seem like a reasonable and respectable human being. She thought I could be a writer. And, if you’ll refer back to point number 4, confidence is everything.

Did she work part-time or full-time? I don’t know anymore. But I do know that the doors to the library were always open whenever I needed to hide, escape math class, watch my friend Michelle sleep off a hangover, or secretly talk to the extremely eccentric but rather cool guy who played D&D in the corner. Oh… or read. I did that, too.

Now… do you think Premier Campbell would find any of these reasons persuasive?

I’ve heard lots of writers say that they write middle grade novels or young adult novels because their inner voices got “stuck” at that age. They can feel, viscerally, what it was like to be 15 and think the way they did at 15.

To some extent, that rings true. I vividly remember high school. (These days, when I talk to teens, I often find myself listening to long and convoluted girlfriend/boyfriend stories — something that I attribute to my ability to remember just how much anguish is involved in a teen relationship.)

I was listening to Shelagh Rogers interview Susan Juby on CBC’s The Next Chapter, and Susan Juby said something slightly different. She said:

“I’m really fascinated by the teenage experience because I feel like in large part I missed it.”

That rings true as well. I think I spent my entire high school life conducting a secret scientific study on how to be socially successful, rather than actually relaxing and enjoying a social life.

But how do you regret something that leaves you with so much fodder for writing?

I am not usually a big procrastinator. Except when it comes to cleaning the garage. (I don’t park in there, anyway.) Or hemming pants. (Because what else will my mother do when she visits?)

At the moment, however, I am PRO.CRAS.TIN.A.TING. I am in a pit of procrastination. An abyss of anti-motivation. An eddy of inertia.

This afternoon, for example, while my children were napping and/or reading, I could have easily worked on one of my two current projects. But no. I cleaned out my husband’s bathroom drawers.

That’s how bad it’s gotten.

God, you may need to send me a deadline.