My husband and I work at the same place, which means we are together all the time. We commute together, we have lunch together, we’re together on our days off. Tuesdays are the exception, when I work and he has the day off to himself. It’s wonderful. There isn’t anyone else I would want to be around every single day, round the clock. Plus, when I come home on Tuesdays, dinner is waiting.

The thing is, though, I run away occasionally. I take a week off and go visit a sister. We goof off for five days straight. It takes five hours for me to get to her house. That five hours is my alone time. My husband never gets that break, or any break long enough to reset.

I finally convinced him how important that is. The last few years, it’s become more important to me; possibly because I no longer take it for granted. So…he went. Took a week and a road trip and lined up things he wanted to do. I saw the opening and also took the week off, to stay.

He thinks he should do this every year. I agree.

Right now, the house is quiet except when I play music. It’s chilly and raining outside, which is my favorite weather, so I couldn’t have timed this better. I decided I would spend the time doing nothing but writing, which has been hard for many reasons.

The first day he was gone involved an internal battle. I could take advantage of this time to deep clean the house. I could clean the big wood box on the deck and fill it with firewood. I could focus on finishing some Christmas gifts. I was even desperate enough to consider washing bedding, flipping mattresses, and cleaning under the beds.

This time, though, I kept reminding myself of the ticking clock. I only had so many days alone. I had to be disciplined. As hard as it was, I did it. I won the battle with chores by emailing my friend, Susan, also a writer. I asked her how she was doing plotting a new mystery, and then told her I needed to be accountable to her, reporting in each day on what I’d written. She jumped on that, and has been reporting in on her progress as well. What a difference it makes.

Accountability is nothing new and I know I need it. The difference is, this time, I set it up beforehand, recognizing the dangerous temptation of household chores when you’re home alone and faced with a blank page.

I have discovered that the story has been there, waiting for me. I’ve spent two days closing loop holes, deleting boring parts, and gathering in the characters because they’ve spent a lot of time doing nothing but running around in the woods. With, you know, no accountability.

I have also discovered that while I thought I was doing very little writing over the past three years, I’ve actually done more than I thought. I’ve been working on the sequel to This Deep Panic and I can feel the ending near. Not to say it will be finished shortly. Only the first draft. The storylines will need to be pieced together, transition chapters between storylines and characters written, and the whole thing edited. And revised. And edited.

But the story is there and it’s taken nothing more than some alone time to realize it.

There is so much to be said for the healing of solitude. For how we need time in just our own company, even if we spend that time deep cleaning under beds. I know there are a lot of people who can’t be alone, and some of them are in my family. They have their own tools for finding what I find in solitude. But for me, quiet time is imperative.

For now, the sequel is tentatively titled Otherkin. Do you know what that word means?

People who identify as half human, half other. Someone who identifies as not human. Maybe part animal or part nature as in a tree. Or part mythical being. They are our ‘kin’ but not fully. I also take it mean those who are with us, but unseen. It’s a dysphoria that actually exists. Look it up; it’s fascinating.

In the meantime, I’m going back to writing now. The otherkin are drawing close.