Why I should never answer the phone

So right now, I'm the most embarrassed I have been in a long time.  It is not a feeling I enjoy.  This is why I'm such a hermit, I reckon: because I'm too much of a twat to be released onto the general public.

My tale of woe isn't writing related, but I'm going to talk about it anyway in the hopes that - like talking to some sort of silent therapist - it won't plague me for the next several months, reducing me to a puddle of embarrassed goo.  It's not even that much of interesting story.  It's not really interesting at all.  But given that I spend too much time in my head - and not always in an enjoyable way - I figured I'm going to air the angst anyway, regardless of its entertainment value.

I just answered the phone.  Not something too extraordinary, you would think.  Something any normal person would be able to do without making a complete idiot of themselves.  Well, to start with I, for reasons best known only to my unconscious mind, answered it in a stupid voice, assuming it would be my father calling from France.  Then joy!  It was indeed my father, allowing me to give my pratishness full reign over the course of the conversation.

Except of course that it wasn't my father.  The horrendous static had in fact disguised the voice of the caller to the extent that I assumed it was my father but was in fact one of my father's friends (who I've met perhaps once), a fact I only realised when he asked to speak to my father.

Needless to say, with my face now glowing hotter than a non-British-summer sun, I hastily concluded the phone call, opened my door and screamed my embarrassed woe to my brother.  So now I will never leave the house, answer the phone or look at another person ever again, just in case it is this friend of my father's, who know doubt wonders what sort of idiot my parents have raised.

Ugh.  Okay.  Rant over.

Do I feel purged, light as a feather, free from the burden of emotional turmoil?  Well no, not really.  I'm pretty sure I still feel like a twat.

On to less angsty subjects (that which I had started writing about before my ill-conceived decision to answer the damn telephone) - the writing thing.  The actual purpose of my blog, rather than it being a vehicle for my self-obsessed ranting.

I think I'm going to have to write myself a schedule, for both Hide and See and its as-yet-unnamed sequel.  Talking with Natasha, a friend from the MA, I gave myself two targets ending with '...and I aim to get that done by the end of August.'

Admirable goals, to be sure, but looking increasingly unlikely if I don't get my arse in gear and spend more time writing and less time being an idiot.

Progress for my writing has always gone better when I've had a strict schedule to follow so I'm thinking that I should stick with what has worked in the past.  I intend to finish the first third of the sequel's first draft and I need to start sending begging letters out to agents for book 1.

I know which option sounds more terrifying.  Yes, that would be Option Number Two - the one which gives me more opportunities to make a complete arse of myself.  Not that that's particularly difficult.  Clearly.