Weaknesses - who doesn't have them. Find me someone who says he/she is strong willed in every way , and I'll show you a liar. It's in our nature to have weaknesses. Whether it's the inability to say 'no' to ice cream or preen at the attention from a charming, dark eyed stranger when one should know better, I believe it's inherent within us to show a weak willed streak from time to time. Perhaps weak knees when it comes to the dark-eyed stranger.
These days people tend to disguise their weaknesses by calling them 'guilty pleasures'. I have a load of those too. Watching old Western movies, the Italian epics starring Steve Reeves, my favorite singers in concert, Ella Fitzgerald in particular. Now, you may say, there's nothing guilty about any of that. What's wrong with him?
Well, I do all that watching on YouTube when I should be writing my next manuscript! Okay, so that is just weak. I can't even start to count the times when I'll pause mid sentence or mid blowjob (on the page) and distract myself for half an hour with You Tube. It really has become my nemesis in a way. I feel completely ashamed at the end of the day when I've only written a thousand words instead of the five thousand I need to get the bloody thing near finished!
Just today, I watched god knows how many clips of disasters around the world, earthquakes, tsunamis, sink holes etc., instead of getting on with how in hell is Steve ever going to get Bob to say 'Okay, let's do it'. No, suddenly watching cars and houses getting swept away, or Apaches leaping over the walls of Fort Defiance, or a Prom concert from the Albert Hall has much more appeal. I tell myself, you'll never increase your royalty check at this rate, your editor is going to start nagging for the next in the series, you haven't finsihed the edits on the last manuscript, etc., etc., etc.!
Amazingly, as weak willed as I am, I seem to have the strength to ignore all those inner voices. I simply click that tantalizing You Tube icon, sit back and enjoy the next episode of some old soap that was canceled five years ago. It's all there you know, just a click away.
I guess the first step in fixing weaknesses (if we truly want them ALL fixed) is recognizing them as weaknesses. Then we at least have the choice of whether or not to fix them. ;>
ReplyDeleteHa! Love it.
ReplyDeleteLack of weakness is over-rated. Don't we like people best who are, at least, vulnerable in some way?
ReplyDeleteI just stopped writing a scene mid-car crash to check Amazon sales stats, and it reminded me of this post.
ReplyDeleteClever title and reassuring post. I'm glad I'm far from being the only writer who is often distracted from the task at hand.
ReplyDeleteI have a suggestion.
ReplyDeleteSwitch to an old browser that doesn't support either HTML5 or Flash! Then you can click on YouTube all you want, but you won't be able to watch the videos.
And another suggestion -- how about using YouTube to reward yourself? Write 1000 words, then you get to watch two videos...!
OR -- disconnect from the net when you're writing. Even simpler!
DeleteLisabet - I'm not on the internet when I'm writing - I have to go there which I do with great alacrity - which I suppose makes it even worse!
DeleteThis is an awesome post--I laughed out loud at this line: "or mid blowjob (on the page)"
ReplyDeleteAs people have said, we all do this. I think this is one of those places of balance. To some degree it's procrastination. To some degree, though, I think it's the brain trying to catch up with what we're typing, thinking through the next bits of the story, etc. I've been experimenting with getting up for a walk when I get the urge to surf the web, with the idea that my brain can do that processing better when I'm less occupied. I think it works decently well.
I'm also trying to just cut myself a little slack on the productivity thing...