I wrote this post back in June. It has been a good three years since I wrote Vol. 2 in this series and I thought the timing, as coincidental as it was, was kinda fateful as well. Around that time I was struggling to write, to come up with and stick to my ideas, to focus on putting words on paper.
I never posted this post while things with writing got worse.
For a while now, I have been flirting with the idea to make myself get out every day and go to a café to write. From previous experiences, it has always helped me when I was serious about the work I wanted to do and the fact that I needed a distraction-free environment (yes, I mean the internet).
I like being around of people when I work. I like the voices around me that make no sense, the random noise in the café, the music in the background that most times is unbearable, people moving around endlessly. All these create a kind of white noise that helps me focus. It’s enough for me to shut it out, and not enough to distract me.
I haven’t written in days so, like a writer committed to her writing, I sit down to write because it’s a thing that has to happen if I want to accomplish anything (like make writing my job *cough cough*), I open my document determinedly and I start writing.
At least, that’s what I’m saying to myself as I endlessly stare at the empty document willing it to life. When nothing works and the words don’t cooperate, I open tumblr because, you know, by scrolling down endlessly I might get an idea, or magically construct the sentence in my mind, or avoid any coherent thought over my story, or wish for the damned thing to finish on its own.
Procrastinating is something I’m an expert at.
Usually, in my desperation to avoid writing, I procrastinate so hard that I even clean my house, which – let me tell you – it’s a thing I’m not very fond of. Ever.
The thing is though, that sitting on my chair trying to motivate myself to write and failing miserably as I go from tumblr to twitter and from cat images to watching Leverage while I knit, isn’t always about procrastinating.