What? But you seem so disciplined, Lani. You’re always writing these lovely posts on how writing has elevated your life – and we all know that you are working on another book. Exactly. My goal of getting it done, came and went like all those other empty goals.
I went through a phase of reading nothing, but writing books. I was sort of addicted to them, but mostly I wanted to know how to be a better writer. Lisa Henderson wrote about all the writing rules you should ignore which I could greatly relate to because I don’t feel like I belong to the club. You know what I mean?
Following nothing, but writers’ blogs (and I mean they strictly write about writing and their work) is a bit tiring for me. I think I’ve reached a point where I’m well-saturated over writing advice, dos and don’ts and how to be a marketing maven. Now, this is not to say that I don’t appreciate writing blogs or read them, I just could never be them.
Actually, I could never just write about one thing which is why writing books takes a long time for me. I want to throw everything in, and that includes the kitchen sink because when I start writing, something else comes to mind and then I’m off…on a tangent. But that’s not my problem right now. NOW, I don’t want to write because I don’t feel like I have anything interesting to say. Yes, it’s bullshit. I know it’s bullshit, but the bullshit is strong these days.
Anyway, I read a very limited amount of writer’s blogs, and when I’m in the mood I’ll read more. Generally though, its information overload and knowing all the things I should and shouldn’t be doing just makes me want to eat a bar of chocolate and binge watch funny YouTube videos, or sweep the floors. How do these writers do it??? Aren’t they annoyed by their Evernotes, OCD goals and word count calendars?
I wrote 334 words, I deserve a break now, right?
It’s kind of exasperating, really. All these writers talking about how much they’ve written today or yesterday or how they wrote a whole book last month when I could barely squeak out a blog post. Now I know how fat people feel when they watch me eat a pizza and wash it down with pistachio ice cream. Well, I tell you how this skinny bitch does it. I have a lot of energy that I use exclusively to avoid writing.
When I first saw this cartoon I laughed (because it’s funny) then I cried (because it’s not funny). It was like having your drinking problem pointed out to you when you didn’t realize you had a drinking problem. I mean, you knew you had a problem, but no one had given it a label, and now that you had that name to your problem, you recognized you had a choice.
And for me that choice, because I’m the cleaner, is to have a clean house OR get some writing done. No. Cleaning the house will almost always win. Why not clean a little, Lani and then write and then you can go back to your cleaning. What? That would be like ironing a shirt and then unplugging the iron to do something else and then returning to the ironing. No.
Then I stumbled upon this video which did not help me – AT ALL. It just confirmed that I’m a genius.
Of course, I could argue, with the little help of the ‘ol TED talk video, that what I’m doing is perfectly fine, that there is nothing wrong with my writing habits. You know, writing when I feel like it. Egats! Dear god, are you mad, woman?
But I can’t help but wonder if I should, you know, change. After all, I could be better, I should be better. If I had more discipline, I’d write way more than I do now.
Sigh.
I wonder if I should do a load of laundry…
Which procrasinator are you? You do procrasinate, right?
Life, the Universe, and Lani 
Leave a reply to Ray Cancel reply