1001 7 Reasons Not to Write

What, you were expecting 1001 Reasons Not to Clean? I really hope I can't find 1001 reasons not to write. But lately, as you can see by the delayed blog post, a lot has been getting in the way of my writing. So, here's a mini list. I hope someone can get a chuckle out of the aggravation below (or others can completely relate).

7 Reasons Not to Write

1. The flu. Not just you with the flu, but your eldest child and your husband. Of course, the youngest child escapes the wretched sickness unscathed, so not only are you dealing with feeling miserable, but you have to contend with a preschooler's high energy level. Even if you had the energy to write, or the brain space, your joints hurt too much to type.

2. One of your cats has a UTI. And the first round of meds didn't work properly. So you're trying to keep an eye on his litter habits and also conferring with the vet. Then you need to take him in another time because the second round of meds still aren't doing it. Finally you need to stress over buying him new, expensive food (that you feel is filled with crap)... which all three cats in the house will need to eat because you'd waste too many hours keeping them separate. Exactly when am I finding time to write with all this going on?

3. One of the computers in the house decides to stop starting up properly. Since you're the one who built the computers in the house you not only need to fix it, but also troubleshoot what's wrong. This includes taking apart your other computer to test a part in the problem computer. After determining the failing part, you need to jump through hoops to request a replacement because it's still under warranty. Though you wonder why you just didn't buy a new one after paying an insane amount of shipping to send out the bad part. When the replacement part arrives and you sit down to install it, you realize they forgot one of the cords needed (oh, you think I don't need power to the CPU?), so then you need to stop in the middle and wait for them to send the missing cord. Once it arrives, you finally fix the computer, and breathe a sigh of relief when it turns on and stays on. Writing? Hell, yes, this whole debacle sucked up a lot of writing time.

4. Yup, caught the cat with the UTI peeing in a corner (unfortunate side effect of the poor kitty being sick). After dealing with the mess he made, you realize that the computer room hasn't had a good, full clean for years, and your paper clutter is turning into new, sentient beings. So you move everything out of the computer room and decide you're taking a week off of writing to get this room cleaned and then everything moved back in, excluding the paper clutter that needs to be gone through, then recycled, shredded, or filed. Surely this will only take you a week. Two weeks later with that paper clutter still filling the dining room and living room, you laugh. It's a sad, miserable laugh because you've spent a decent amount of time dealing with it all, but life still decided to get in the way of better progress.

5. It's fucking cold. All you want to do is hide upstairs under the covers and hibernate. Winter sucks and needs to go away. Typing at the desktop computer freezes your hands and feet. And of course since you have Scrivener 3 on the new Macbook, it will be a headache to convert files back and forth from Scrivener on your desktop (since 3 isn't out for Windows yet), and you don't want to deal with the slow as molasses HP laptop when you have a super speedy and shiny Macbook which is ten times better. Revisions? Hahahaha.

6. You have to walk in that fucking cold 2 days a week for 2 hours each of those days (the things us parents do for our kids). And no matter how much you try to resist falling asleep in the afternoon, it's a losing battle since you're so exhausted from the cold and the walking that you nod off instead of writing.

7. Because all the proverbial shit seems to be hitting the fan, your will to even try has been depleted. To the point that it's coming up empty. I mean, every time you try, you just get more shit flung back in your face, so what's the point? It's much easier to play a game on the iPad or watch some TV to drown out the screaming coming from the inside of your own head.

***NOTE: I understand some people have it a lot worse off than I do. The above are all a bunch of little, rather annoying things. But they're all my little, rather annoying things, and it feels like a lot when it's personal. Right now, I don't have enough spoons left to think past my own personal world, so please forgive me.***