Keifer Sutherland voice-over: The following takes place between 8:50 and 9:15am:

After dropping the short kid off at preschool, I head off in the direction of Dunkin Donuts. Having been up until 1:30 trying to get the writing in that I missed due to football (YAY!), I need the caffeine. Badly. I woke up with the same thought that I’d gone to sleep to. How can I have an entire scene in 2 pages? Then some moron decides he wants to be in my space in the road.

Now, normally I’d let him take it–when my kids are with me I’m the most passive driver on the road. But this morning I’m tired, caffeine-deprived, and trying to calculate page counts in my weary little head. It’s MY space, dammit. In the midst of the locking up tires, fishtailing truck beds, roaring engines, flying birds, and tailgating that ensues, I have a lightbulb moment.

For over three years I’ve been doing the Magic Word Count Formula. Set your settings, get 250 words per page. Bam. That’s it, and you never, ever have to think about it again. If you’ve got 4 pages, you’ve got a 1k. If you’ve got 320 pages, you’ve got 80k. Well, doh. The new manuscript is Book Antiqua 12, single-spaced, computer word count. Hello. The average is something outrageous like 497 words per page. That might explain it.

So I get home, ready to dive back into it, and the business phone is ringing. Did I mention my big, obnoxious truck is a rolling 4×4 billboard for the husband’s company? With the phone number written down the side in 8-inch numbers? Luckily, I’m the only one home.

“Yes, sir. I totally agree. She can’t drive and she is a crazy bitch, and I’ll recommend the boss fire her right away. Have a nice day.”

The moral: Never underestimate the power of sleep.