OK, so it wasn't a wise man, but my favorite group of all time, the Barenaked Ladies. One thing you should know about me - everything in life can be related to lyrics from a BNL song. EVERYTHING. I even have a novel that was inspired by one of their songs. My love for this group (and especially Ed) borders on pathological. I once saw them in concert and I touched Ed's bum. I literally cried the day I learned Steven left the group. Far too many important events in my life relate to them and their music in some way. See? Pathological. It's pertinent you know and accept this about me now.
ANYWAYS.
(Disclosure: I know someone out there is reading this and thinking it, so I'll just point out now that yes, I am aware of the irony of me wasting yet even more precious writing time on a blog post when I could be working on the novel. In my defense, my daughter pooped herself awake at 5 am today and I've decided blogging will happen on those mornings where she has me up before the ass-crack of dawn.)
Where the eff does my time go? Specifically, my writing time. I wake up every day, full of honest intentions to finally get that heap of clean laundry on the floor folded and put away, the fridge cleaned out (I can't even begin to speculate on what that tupperware container of green goo once used to be), some QT with each one of my muppets, a couple of chapters of some book read, and some uninterrupted time with my WIP.
You've probably already surmised that none of this ever happens, or at least not all of it.
No, instead I usually flail my way through a handful of chores, running the muppets around town, counting to 10 to swallow my rage when one of them dumps the ginormous bin of Legos all over the floor AGAIN, obsessively checking Facebook and my email, watching re-runs of The Big Bang Theory, and staying up much too late sucked into whatever book has my attention.
Lots of those duties are necessities, but I'm aware that plenty of them are not. They're mindless diversions, and they steal my
The truth is, I just need to learn to unplug from all of those distractions so I can plug back into my story. Sounds simple enough. So why is it so hard to do? The internet is a timesuck of epic proportions, and I know better, so why do I let it lure me in every day? Because I'm lazy (my disaster of a home is only one example of this). Because the internet is how I connect with grownups (I love my children dearly, but let's be honest, conversing with the under-4 set on the regular can sometimes be equivalent to waterboarding). Because I'm afraid (fear is a topic for a future post I'm working on).
There are obviously many, many writers who juggle life with small children and manage to be disciplined enough to get words on the page on a regular basis (one of the gals in my writer's group is one such goddess). I should probably read some of their blog posts telling me how they do it. This would, however, require me to drag my attention away from my latest spanking in online Scrabble, the always fun discussions on my online book club board, the most recent text from my friend Becca filled with delicious eye candy, the juicy plot point about to be revealed in the book on my nightstand, etc., etc. I'm anti-discipline personified, so this isn't exactly something easy for me to do. But, I *want* to be a writer. More importantly, I want to be a *good* writer. A *published* writer. Those things won't happen if I don't buckle down.
:::heads off to open WIP but instead gets sidetracked by videos of BNL on youtube:::
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