Sitting down to write this post, I thought back on last week and tried to remember how many days I actually wrote something. The answer is a really, really annoying “one”. And I didn’t even get my 250 words. It was 150. A good 150, with a lot of editing past words, but still. This is just ridiculous.
So I got to thinking about what I’m doing instead of writing. I mean, I have a very specific hour set aside every single night in which I have nothing to do *but* write. And every night at (or a little after – another problem) 11pm, I’m sitting in my writing booth with a snack and a cup of tea and my dogs beside me, laptop open. So what’s the problem?
Whoa…no need to shout all at once! I hear you, and I know you sympathize. I mean, this whole Facebook/social media addiction is a very real thing, isn’t it? And a very stupid thing, honestly. Not that social media is stupid – it’s not at all, and I think it’s a very valuable tool for introverts like me to keep up with things and be social on our own terms. However – when I’m just staring at it like some reality-show trainwreck *when I have other things to do* – well, it’s time to give myself an intervention.
Sometimes I get back to the office late – but that’s because I’m lazy in the evenings and don’t get up right at ten to clean the kitchen. If I did, I could conceivably even be back in the office closer to 10:30pm, which would give me even more time to write. I’m thinking maybe I need to set a kitchen timer a couple of hours before 10pm that will just go off at 10, and I’ll have to actually get up and go to the kitchen to turn it off. Yes, I really am that lazy. Alarms are my friends. Noisy, seriously annoying friends.
Although I could just set an alarm on my cell that tells me exactly what will happen if I don’t get my butt out to the kitchen. Something like “If you don’t get up now, you’ll start writing late, and then you won’t find out what happens to ___, and you’ll feel like crap when it’s time to go to bed and you’ve done nothing.” Nothing like a little reality check to get one moving, right?
As for the Facebook thing, the easiest way to stop that is simply to not use my laptop to write. I have an Alphasmart that works perfectly well, it’s just uncomfortable to use in my writing booth due to the difference between the table height and the bench height (my wrists are in the wrong position). But I could sit sideways in the booth (yes, I have pillows) and type on my lap, and that fixes that little problem. Or I could sit on the floor with the dogs…I’m sure they’d like that, and I have a cozy new rug to sit on. So…options.
Or I could just buck up and shut my browsers down, open my writing program and get to work like a well-disciplined writer. Which would make me feel a whole lot better, honestly (though the Neo is much easier on my eyes, so I may still revert to that for awhile – my eyes have been bugging me again lately).
This week’s goal is just to write. No Facebook/Instagram/Twitter (I lurk) after 10pm. I didn’t get started until nearly 11:30pm last night, but I still got a bunch of editing done (changed my mind about how I wanted the first part to go) and a few new sentences down on the origin draft I’m working on. I feel pretty good about that.
Here’s an excerpt from last night’s session:
Aaron Pointer adjusted his battered field hat and wiped his brow with a sweat-stained handkerchief. Stuffing the dirty cloth back into his pocket, he chose a soft paintbrush from the wooden toolbox nearby and bent over the small object still half-buried in the dirt. He’d sent the rest of his team back to the boats, so he could make this one last extraction alone. There would be no official documentation to mark the find, only what he chose to write in the brown leather field journal in his knapsack. The piece was too valuable, too powerful for the discovery to be made public.
Author sites: JamieDeBree.com | TrinityMarlow.com | AlexWesthaven.com
Publisher Site: Brazen Snake Books