I'm still not calling it "The Zone."

I crossed a line the other day. It's only a line in my head, but it's a big one.

On one side, anything can distract me from butt-in-chair, words-on-page writing. The way my nail polish is chipping only my thumb, and the idea that changing from My Auntie Drinks Chianti to Blue Me Away! will magically imbue my fingers with more speed, if not inspiration.

The sudden, urgent need to go to the grocery store to buy kale so I can make kale chips, which are supposed to be healthy and easy, truly a magical snack, even though I don't really like the idea of kale, or cooking.

An obsessive need to research the IMdB bios of the cast of Community because ... um, because.

A renewed acquaintance with my vacuum cleaner and toilet brush. Because writing in a clean house will be better than writing in a dusty, cat-hair-covered one!

Even I have trouble buying that last one.

To be honest, deadlines motivate me more than anything else. I need an end point, a fixed goal, or I can noodle around with words and ideas and failed scenes pretty much forever. But even deadlines aren't scary enough to keep me in my seat until something clicks, and I cross that line into the place where the cat could be horking up hairballs a foot away and I wouldn't be able to stop writing.

I'm there now, working on the sequel to Cold Kiss. Some days it's a little weird to raise my head and realize I'm not in the town where I went to high school, and it's not late December, and I actually have a husband, and kids, and a really serious need to take a shower and for the comfort of all involved put on a different sweater. And possibly eat something other than tea and dry Apple Jacks out of the box.

But I'm still not calling it "The Zone." Maybe ... The Fugue. Well, maybe not.