As I told M Sunday night around 12:15 am (so okay, it was early Sunday morning), it's easier than breaking rocks to get paid to cover the Oscars from the comfort of your own home office … but six hours in front of the TV and computer screen ain't for wusses, either.

We got home Saturday evening from a lovely week away (Turks and Caicos islands, more on that likely at some point), spent Sunday puttering around with necessary things like laundry and marveling at the apartment, which has now been painted off-white, and then around 6pm I settled in to write up blog entries about the Oscars for one of the outlets I work for.

Again, this is easier than coal mining, and easier probably than a lot of other folks' jobs. (I'm not going to grumble too hard that it was the first year in about five that I wasn't able to have an Oscar party.) But here's the writing aspect of it: No such thing as a writer's block when you're under the gun like that. Over the course of the six hours I watched, digested, researched, wrote, checked, added photos/video/links (the usual producing stuff) to six posts and sent them out into the ether, crossing my fingers I hadn't missed something totally obvious. This while instant-messaging with a room of around 7-10 folks and tying up loose ends here and there. There's zero time to think about "does this word work with this word?" or even put much finesse on your blog entry openings. You just do, you just work, you just … write.

It's so easy when writing for yourself, with no particular deadline but your own, to whimper and whine that the words won't come, that you're stuck and you won't sound good. The fact is, if you sit down and make the words come, they will come. Type it and they will come, even if only in 500 word chunks. They may not be brilliant, they may not be quite right, but they will be there for you to clean up later on.

And still, easier than cracking granite.

P.S. Hurrah for Adele and "Argo"!