Yeah, “procrastivity.” That clichéd idea that writers will do any little task to get out of having to write. Need your house cleaned? Call up your local miserable author suffering from writer’s block. Your house has never seen such a cleaning.

Me? I have the opposite problem. What I hate is cleaning the house. I will do anything to get out of it. Write or clean? It’s no contest for me, I’ll choose writing every time.

It’s not that I prefer a filthy house. On the contrary. I like having a clean house. That’s not the issue. The issue is the act of cleaning.

As I always say, a person with a clean house has run out of yarn to knit and books to read.

Well, here’s the thing. I’ve got company coming. Family-company. And, honestly, my beautiful niece and her wonderful family actually don’t care if I have a clean house. But that’s not good enough. See, it’s my upbringing. It’s what my mother drilled into me, from my earliest memories. It’s ok if things aren’t perfectly spic and span for yourself, but when you have people coming over, you clean the house. It’s polite. It makes your home more comfortable for your guests. It’s rude to not clean for them.

As many of you reading this know, I am in the throws of writing a novel. My first. I have given myself a daily word count goal, weekdays only, weekends off, to get my first draft done before my husband and I go off on our drive-by Christmas. Which is another story which I won’t get into here. But let me just say, when Christmas comes, and it will come early this year, my first draft has to be done and off to my writing coach. Otherwise, it might languish until…Superbowl Sunday?

But I’ve got company coming. So I have to clean the house. I can’t write. I have to clean.

Which pissed me off.

You can just imagine. I’m angrily sweeping the front porch. I’m angrily scrubbing the electric stove top. I’m angrily mopping the floors.

And suddenly, inspiration came to me. A fight between two of my characters. And let me tell you, the fight was so clear, I could almost hear it out loud. I kept playing it over and over in my head, cringing at every spiteful comeback, wilting with every anguished tear, as I’m throwing that last used cleaning rag into the washing machine.

The house is clean enough. Got out the laptop, and cranked out over two thousand words in no time. Who says those trivial daily chores are wasted time? Today’s cleaning conjured forth my muse.

Maybe she likes a clean house, too.