Writing Avoidance

First, may I simply say, “ugh”? Over the past few months, particularly as I have been planning to really buckle down and work on rewriting my retelling of Beauty and the Beast (2008’s NaNoWriMo effort), I have begun to truly fine-tune my procrastination skills.

Have you ever noticed how many incredibly fascinating blogs there are out there? Blogs that you never knew you missed before, but now that you’ve discovered them, you cannot live without them? Um, yes, well, I have. Also, isn’t it just possible that someone posted something incredibly fascinating on Facebook in the 20 minutes since you last checked it? (I’m exceedingly embarrassed by this growing tendency to compulsively check Facebook—I used to be among the Facebook mockers, and now I am one of the mockees.)

In case you were wondering about exactly what I’m avoiding, here it is: My goal for writing in 2012, in a gazillion complicated steps. Rewrite B&B draft 1. Go through set of alpha readers (friends/colleagues/etc. who read and comment). Rewrite again. Go through another set of readers. Rewrite again. Finish up in time to plan and participate in NaNoWriMo.

Insane, yes?

It should be noticed that I’m already waaaaay behind and revising my plans. The above was my original plan, but now it’s more like this: Finish writing B&B draft 1. Revise it extensively until it makes sense. Revise it some more. Maybe show it to Brice. Revise it some more. Then get some other readers. Try to frantically revise it. Then off to NaNoWriMo. Still insane, but maybe possible?

Anyway, this writing avoidance thing has been expanding to include the blog. Blech. (Is there a hidden meaning in the fact that “blog” and “blech” are so vocally similar?) And now I have a stack—I mean really a stack—of things I’ve been meaning to blog about. So many it’s a little ridiculous. Pretty soon I might just have to start posting fragments of this ridiculousness. Or just scrap them all. Or throw them in a blender and then post what comes out.

On the upside, though, the writing avoidance has been slowing down. I’m actually on a 2.5-week streak of writing at least a little bit each day. Granted, yes, some of the days were kind of pathetic, some were not on my novel (like the Sundays when I worked on my blog instead), and some were just random. And, well, yesterday I added exactly 17 words to my manuscript.

But, hey, at least I wrote, right?

What are you avoiding today?