Cyber Hooky
August 6th, 2007 by Kathleen Bolton
Obviously I’m having a day of supreme mental blankness, when I can neither write nor blog intelligently. I was supposed to be working on my wip today, but I stumbled across the website Writing Fix: Word games for Writers and I got hung up playing cyber Hangman.
The Boggler game is pretty fun too.
Okay, this is a lie. I just didn’t feel like writing. I showed up for work but my brain didn’t. Yeah, I know, Anthony Trollope would have gotten right to work anyway. But I was sitting in front of the computer, and one thing led to another. Pretty soon, my writing time was up with nothing to show for it. My bad.
I think it’s okay to give yourself permission to blow a perfectly good day of writing doing something stupid. Like reading the TMZ celebrity gossip blog. Or solving an online crossword puzzle.
I’ll feel guilty about it tomorrow. But today I feel like I needed a day off from the work, ya know? I’ll hit the grindstone again tomorrow, refreshed.
What’s your favorite way to waste valuable writing time?
Photo by walking-enmity.
well, i think the old tried and true method is to say to yourself that you will first clean up the house, mow the lawn or whatever chores you have stacked up behind your desk chair. then its 6pm and you’ve cleaned out three closets, two junk drawers and decided to sort, by date, all your magazines. now that a great waste of a writing day. p.s./and to clarify, you HATE housecleaning as a general rule of life.
LOL, thea, I’d already scrubbed the bathroom (gross!) and organized a closet. I reeeeally didn’t want to write for some reason.
Hanging out with my hubby or playing pretend with my daughter. Or wandering to the kitchen and munching (this is not recommended). I also obsessively check email. Is there a 12-step program for this?
This is great. I’m in the throes of procrastination right now commenting on blogs.
I use the rational that responding to email and commenting on blogs is writing. So it’s OK.
But when I really don’t want to write, even on a blog or message board, I read. Or clean. While I clean, I get all sorts of ideas and inspiration. Then when I’m doing cleaning, I don’t have the energy to follow up on those ideas.
I don’t mind though. My muse is fairly nice to me and seems to make the effort to come around when I’m ready for her.
I game. Usually Xbox 360. Sometimes I will play a game instead of write. I think there are days when you will probably produce such bad writing you should probably just do something else.
I think it’s important to remember that when you write, it should be because you want to do it.
Going the Writing Nazi route can work but I find in the long run it tends to make you dislike the thought of writing because you feel like you HAVE to do it, instead of WANT to do it.
If you need a day off here and there in order to *want* to write, then you should just do that.
speaking as the parent of two sons, i think gaming is the worst time-sucking animal ever invented.
Speaking as the son of two TV-aholic parents, I’d say TV is the worst time-sucking animal ever invented.
I’ve actually started watching TV for the sake of writing — too much series, character, and plot development to miss out on really.
There is no limits to gaming in my house, but I still refuse to get a Tivo. How backwards is that? Tivo would be The Devil. I don’t need to be spoon fed hundreds of hours of TV that I’d *actually want to watch* — that’s really asking for it.
I used to call my mother, and that was really desperate because she drove me crazy. Then she died and I had to figure out something else to do to put off writing. Looking out the window is good. Talking to the cat. Browsing the refrigerator shelves even when I know there’s nothing in there. Or commenting on other people’s blogs works great. I’ve managed to put off writing a blog entry tonight and now I’m too tired. Thanks a lot — really!
Who needs excuses when you have children?
I do love scanning other blogs, checking out the Calvin & Hobbes archives, and playing Kyodai Mahjongg. Addictive game.
The dogs interrupt me for fun and games even on the days when writing is going well. When it isn’t, I am the one who initiates the fun and games (low key at the moment because Outlaw is recovering from a very nasty bite wound.) Tea and snacks happen a lot.
Eric has a good point - we need to give ourselves SCHEDULED days off during which TV, gaming, chatting, emailing and reading junk magazines are all allowed. Then we can enjoy them relatively guilt-free.
Pets, kids, parents, filthy, boob-tube, gaming, online surfing…this modern world is loaded with time-suckers.
FYI, happy to be of service, Verna!
How could I have forgotten about dogs? Thanks, Juliet!
Will you all think less of me if I admit this? Well there’s supposed to be freedom in honesty so here I go.
I watch Star Trek and Babylon Five. Problem is, because I own the whole of the Next Gen and Voyager series of Star Trek and the whole Babylon Five series I’m not taking about 1 or 2 eposides, I’m taking 8 or 10 in a row.
It’s all in the interest of research of simple character and story development, of course.
I like Joss Whedon’s Firefly, MaryK. I’m waiting for life to calm down so I can go an a Battlestar Galactica glom. So far I’ve resisted!
I haven’t come across Joss Whedon’s Firefly or seen Battlestar Galactica Kathleen. I will have to check them out. Thanks.