Last Thursday afternoon, Robbi loaded the kids into the car and drove north. Her destination was Lake George. Notably missing from the passenger seat was I, who have been left behind to spend a few weeks recharging my batteries and getting some writing done. It’s funny how perfectly the two go hand-in-hand.

What I miss in the course of my daily life is long blocks of uninterrupted time. In my normal life, I get only short intervals, which is good for certain types of writing tasks but prohibitive for tackling others.

I’d say that roughly 20 percent of writing time yields good writing. If I write for an hour, I’ll get about 12 minutes of good stuff out of it. But if I write for, say, 15 hours, I’ll get three hours worth of good material. Which is a lot of good material. If I’m particularly lucky, I’ll fall into a groove that will yield even a higher percentage of quality stuff. Today (Sunday) was such a day.

Here is where I have been for all but one hour since 5:00am.

I’ve needed every minute. Robbi has left me a to-do list that includes.

• copy for six children’s-themed, make-your own mix-and-match books
• six new Bobbledy Books manuscripts
• copy for a broadside we’re going to print on the letterpress later this year
• copy for a series of humorous greeting cards we’re going to print on the letterpress
• two new Idiots’Books manuscripts
• copy for our new website, which Robbi will be designing in the fall

In case you are wondering, I am missing my family, but they left a little piece of themselves behind to keep me company.

When I returned to my computer after waving them goodbye, I found this leaning against my laptop screen, left there by elves, apparently.

It’s time for bed. My brain has just run out of words. It happens sometimes.

But, fortunately, not every often.