If It’s This or Chores…

There is a time that arrives–usually late Saturday morning or early afternoon, but sometimes Friday evening or Sunday–when I need to stop fucking around, and actually sit down to write a blog post. I’ve mentioned before that writers are fantastic procrastinators when it comes to actually writing, and this blog is no exception to that. Yet this blog post, which I naturally procrastinated starting, serves as a procrastination tool for the other things I should be doing today, which include: a) writing fiction; b) polishing the novel I’ve actually managed to finish; and c) a list of chores that need doing.

To be fair, I want to finish (b) before I even think about (a), but that leaves (c), which is never ending. But sometimes, I do (c) to avoid doing (b) or (a), so though (c) is definitely the most unappealing option on that list, there are times it still ranks above (a) or (b), especially if completing some items on that list means we will have clean clothes, clean dishes, or food. While writing these two paragraphs (which took MUCH longer than you want to know about), I folded the laundry, assembled an afternoon snack for my husband and me, wiped off my desk (it was pretty gross), played my dumb game for ten minutes, and spent fifteen minutes scrolling through a Pinterest board to find something that might get this post rolling. Here’s what I found:

This guy is hilarious. I also think he’s right. To be a writer is to love writing more than almost anything (except maybe ice cream), but also hate it a little, too. It’s like someone who professes to love their job, but also complains bitterly about it literally all the time. Writers do that.

WHY THOUGH? Why do writers hate writing, if it’s all they think about and all they want to do? On that score, I can only speak for myself, and not all writers as a collective. I hate it because at all times I have a host of people who live only in my head telling me their stories, and in that jumbled nonsense I have to find the right story thread to pull, knowing that when I do, I can weave it into something wonderful, or the whole thing will fall apart in colossal fashion. I hate when I am working something out by talking to myself and someone catches me (then I just look crazy). I hate when I construct the perfect sentence in my head, only to have it die somewhere between my brain and my fingertips. I love answering, “I’m a novelist with a day job,” when asked what I do, but I hate the disbelief on the asker’s face when I won’t talk about my book, as if I just lied about being a novelist in the first place.

Of course, each of those points has a counterpoint that explains why I love writing. I love it when the story comes out just the way the character is telling me it should. I love talking to myself (my rad Dad says it’s the only way to get the answers you want) and do it so often I don’t see the problem with it. I love it when the perfect sentence comes out of nowhere and appears on the page saying, “Hi, thanks for creating me!” I love telling people I’m a novelist. And I love pulling all these things together to create something that didn’t exist until I gave it life. It’s the closest to actual magic I’ll ever get.

Now that I am super close to smashing that “Publish” button and unleashing this post upon the world, I have to whether to spend the rest of my day on (b) or (c). I think (c) will wait for tomorrow, and I’ll work on (b). It is what I love, after all. Do what you love and what makes you happy.

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I guess I did accomplish something today, since I finally started playing with finishing my cover art. What a sneak peek? Too bad, you’re getting one anyway.

So, I don’t know. I’m still not one hundred percent sold on the title, and the art Elissa gave me wasn’t big enough for the whole cover (hence the framing), and I’m not sure about the fonts I’ve used. But, this is close to what it will look like, I think, and if all goes the way I’ve planned (fingers crossed), we’ll all hold copies in our hands sometime in 2022.

I’ve decided there’s no better feeling than seeing the thing you’ve dreamed about for thirty years actually happen.