FORSGREN: A window into what I’m actually doing when “writing”
Published at | Updated at
It’s a beautiful, glorious, blue sky and sunshine kind of day outside today. And, well, that’s kind of problematic for me. The reason is because it gives me one more reason to avoid doing what I’m supposed to be doing right now: writing.
All the writers I know, myself included, spend as much time trying to avoid writing as they do actually writing. I decided to track myself and found that I’m astoundingly non-productive. Breaking down the data, it seems I’ll do almost anything to keep from writing.
So what am I doing when I tell you I’m “writing”? After strenuous scientific statistical analysis, I came up with the following breakdown of what I’m actually doing during my “writing” time.
25% of my “writing” time is spent looking for the writing music to listen to
Most writers I know listen to music as they write. Typically, they choose music and playlists based on the genre or mood of the story they’re writing. For example, my buddy Ryan listens to fantasy movie scores when writing fantasy, or science fiction movie scores when writing sci-fi. You get the picture.
That’s a smart way to work, but I don’t write that way. I listen to whatever I’m in the mood for. That can take some time to find, though. I almost never stick with the first artist I queue up, and I’ve been known to spend hours trying to find something I’ll just let play.
20% of my “writing” time is spent staring off into space or people watching
The people watching is a huge problem if I’m writing in a public venue, like the library. It gets even worse if the people I’m people watching happen to be attractive women. Then I’m completely useless.
When I’m at home, people watching isn’t such a huge obstacle, but staring off into space is. Apparently, the paint on my walls is often more interesting than what’s on my computer screen.
15% of my “writing” time is spent screwing around on Facebook
I believe that Facebook was actually developed by enemies of Inspiration to sap the world of creativity and color by hypnotizing creative types and keeping them focused on coming up with witty status updates instead of creating new stories and art.
The really sad part isn’t that this actually works. It’s that my status updates are anything but witty.
10% of my “writing” time is spent on bathroom/snack breaks
It’s amazing how overwhelming the need to stuff your face gets when you sit down to do something creative. It’s even more amazing how your bladder shrinks when you sit down to do something creative.
Speaking of which, I’ll be back in a flash…
(Three minutes and twenty-two seconds later…)
10% of my “writing” time is spent playing with my writing totems.
I carry little knick-knacks with me, usually little toys or mini-figures. They’re supposed to help inspire me and keep me focused. Mostly, though, they distract me and make me stage fight scenes. It might help if I wrote a lot of fight scenes in my novels or other projects. But I don’t.
10% of my “writing” time is spent playing air guitar.
Because, I want to hone my air guitar skills to the point that I can compete in the World Air Guitar Championships in Finland. Also, because there are some songs you just can’t avoid air guitaring to. Like Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So” or Iron Maiden’s “Aces High”.
6% of my “writing” time is spent trying to invent some kind of cloning device.
If I could do that, I could clone myself and make my clone (I’d name him Volcano Magnetar) write the stories for me.
4% of my “writing” time is spent actually writing
Every once in a while, I do manage to get down a few words. Sometimes they’re even words that sound good together and tell a coherent story.
Given such a lack of productivity, it’s fair to wonder why I would choose to write stories at all. But I can answer that pretty easily: I “write” stories because occasionally, I come up with something I really like and I feel an immense sense of accomplishment. For that reason, wasting all that time avoiding writing is not a waste. For that reason, I’ll keep doing it.