A reminder that life does happen and a savoury pancake to make it all better

This past week has been one of getting derailed at every step I take. Sometimes life likes to remind us that it will happen, and throw shit in the fan, whether you like it or not. Being so close to jotting down "the end" on my current WIP, I have been prevented of it all week long. Part of me wanted to get to the weekend and see these past five days behind me, part of me wanted to have more time at hand so I could work a little bit more, strive a little bit more, get things done. I do impose upon myself a rhythm of work that is not always feasible, and when it gets thrown to the wolves, I tend to go down with the deluge. I tend to fall apart a bit. Control freak and what not, you know.

 It was all minor stuff, nothing big, nothing worthy of real importance, but combined, it prevented me of focusing and working. Started with no internet access, no phone all through Monday. I need my access to work, as I am constantly checking facts on line, places, names, historical stuff. Also, I use a dictionary and a thesaurus online, as I can't really afford to buy a good one. And being without a phone, although I detest calling or answering phone calls, gets me very anxious: what if something happened to my son and the school needs to call me? Or my husband? Or I need to call someone? Of course there's always the mobile, but I seem to forget, even though my son's school never call me on the landline... And not being able to check my facts online while writing a book that does feature certain historical figures, well, that did it for me Monday. I got nothing done.

Enter Tuesday, and as soon as I am sitting down to work, hoping and praying my provider has fixed the problem, lo and behold, the bell rings and it's the building admin saying they need to check something with the doorbells and what not. A whole morning was lost to this, I got mad as hell because there had been a meeting just three days before and we should have bneen warned this procedure was needed, and was taking place this week, but no. Why bother, right? After all, people tend to assume that because I work from home, I actually do not work at all, so I have all this free time in my hands. Thinking I would manage to make up for the time loss later, I plunged myself into work, but because I was expecting a delivery - a copy of my first published novel and my latest published work were finally making their way to me! - I could hardly focus. I mean, it would be the first time I was gonna hold my very own books in my hands.

Suffice it to say the delivery took forever, and even though a certain hour was assigned for the package to be delivered, it took two more hours and a few phone calls to finally hold the books to me. Of course by the time the first phone call ensued I was already so nervous and irritated, I couldn't write another word. I do detest when people schedule a time and then are late for hours. It's very Portuguese and everyone here does that, but to me this is just rude and absurd, especially if it's work related. Unprofessional is the least I can call it. But finally I had the books and I couldn't work anymore, I needed to touch and leaf through them, I was so enamoured and so proud to have them here. It made all the hard work seem real, it made me feel like yes, now I am a writer, a published author, I have a job, a calling, a career. To say I was happy is the understatement of they year.

So by Wednesday I was back on a roll and managed to get so much writing done, I did do a lot of progress. The end was neigh, and was I glad! Then I could start jotting down plot twists for the final volume, checking holes between volume one and two that I needed to resolve on volume three, getting ahead with structuring the final instalment of this which is actually the ONE thing I have wanted to write all my life and always lacked the courage to. But come Thursday and I had a splitting headache that meant I was unable to do much more than fix the covers for these two volumes. After lunch I ended up turning off the laptop and sitting down on the sofa binge watching The Magicians, which is one of my fave guilty pleasures. I wrote next to nothing, last thursday, and am writing next to nothing today, because my brain feels numb already - we had a power failure in the area and my house is everything electric, so you can imagine the chaos it was, with hubby needeing to go to work, kiddo needing to go to school. By the time I sat here to work, my head was a blank, my mood was down, and right now, I feel like every little thing I write is a buckload of crap.

Being so close to the finish line and throwing down the towel is not for me, so I'm giving myself some space and making sure I take it easy. Feel like I can't write today? Then I'll work on the outline, the layout, move chapters around, bring a scene up and another back, just faff around the storyline. If I do get my juices up and suddenly writing becomes a necessity, I'll plunge into it with usual gusto, but won't be beating myself up for slacking on my work for a day or two. Stuff will still get done. I have a few promotions running for all my published works in a few days time - starting not this weekend but the next - so I'll work on getting everything ready for those, social media wise. I'll play around in Canva and do some teasers, some promo work, to try and raise curiosity and reach more readers, I'll laze about if I want to, even read my own books, if only to try and prove myself wrong, get it into my head that I'm not crap at all. It won't be  a wasted day, but I do confess I feel the need for some comfort food in order to feed the lowdown I'm in, the slump I got myself into, and these savoury pancakes are just what I crave...

I don't like sweet pancakes, nor do I ever cook crepes and what not. But when it comes to the savoury versions, I'm all for it. These were a treat down my gob when I cooked them for Chinese New Year a while back, and I do hope you try them, because it's all that's good when you're feeling down!

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh chive
• 1/2 cup chopped chinese garlic
• 1/2 cup chopped garlic asparagus
• salt, pepper, five spice - a pinch of each

Beat the egg with the milk and add to the flour along with the herbs and seasonings. Mix well until you have a batter that's more on the runny side. On your stove, heat up a non stick frying pan that you've rubbed with a little sesame oil poured into a bit of kitchen paper. Using a laddle, pour a scoop of batter into the pan and allow for it to cook on one side until it starts to cook up the edges on top as well. Turn it and finish off cooking on the other side. Repeat until there's no more batter, enjoy these solo or with an array of other nibbles. Easy stuff, but oh so tasty!!