I have a post that I have been working on for the past couple of days, but it isn’t ready to show yet. I have other half done posts that aren’t even that close and time says it is up, post time is at hand. Crap.
How many others have sat down to write today’s blog post and noodled on one thing until it petered out, and then fiddled with another until it seemed garbled? How often have you stared at the screen for a little bit and thought about how you got farther today than yesterday when you didn’t even bother to open up a new post and stare at the screen?
public domain image
When writing isn’t happening, eventually I stand up and wander about the house and:
- Clean the tracks on the shower stall and the tracks on the sliding door
- Water the indoor plants
- Take inventory of the kitchen and bathroom for a grocery list
- Pull out the lambswool tool and get rid of cobwebs
- Go for a walk (and I’m even nice enough to bring my son’s dog along)
- Collect quotes cut out from various magazines that have appealed to me and put them in the book that I keep for that purpose
- Go through the pile of mail, flyers and papers that breed on the table
- Ponder what to make to use up the 2 overripe bananas on the counter
- Watch Sneakers or other dated, but still entertaining movies
- Thought about going out to get plants for my 2 hanging baskets but then realized that wouldn’t appear to be writing in the slightest
And this is the post that you get today. What do you get done when you are ‘writing’?
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Boy oh boy, can I relate to this! I can always find something else to do instead of writing a blog post or newsletter, and it’s not always a productive something either. Let’s see, I can call a friend, fold laundry, re-read part or all of a book I’ve already read a thousand times, or waste time on the computer (a classic modern-day time waster).
So many writers who give advice suggest to other writers to use a computer that doesn’t have an internet connection. Less temptation. Of course that only works if you don’t compose directly on your blog site… You reading is also seen as a point on advice from plenty of established writers so doesn’t that mean it isn’t counter productive?