Tuesday, June 30, 2009

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD AND OTHER LITERARY CONUNDRUMS...


This photo is courtesy of my friend Jenice.
If there is one truth I have learned over the past year it is this. Constant blogging and finishing a novel are not compatible.
There are other things that are not compatible with writing and completing projects. Shall we list them?
1. A pile of dirty clothes. They rumble, they hiss, they scream out to be washed. Unfortunately this is sex linked because it doesn't seem to affect male writers.
2. A sink full of dirty dishes. The sound made is bubbly-gurgley and persists until resolved. Unfortunately this too is sex-linked.
3. The "what's for dinner" phenomenon. You guessed it. Sex linked.

I tried to find SOMETHING that wasn't related to the male-female thing.
I think I found one:

4. The 'play with the cat' phenomenon. Yep. Cross-gender and highly addictive. Also an insidious time waster.
Closely related to 'feed the cat', 'brush the cat', pick up the cat' and wipe up the cat's hairballs'

My research in this matter has derailed yet another potential productive day of writing.

6 comments:

Sabrina Favors said...

My problem is that I'll want to watch a single tv show I enjoy, but then I'll flip through the channels when it's over. "I'll just make one loop around and then turn it off, I'm sure there's nothing on." And then I'll find something mildly interesting (not even "very"), and get sucked in. Then there's no escape, despite the manuscript sitting open in front of me. I'm trying to work out of that. Maybe just hide the remote from myself and bid my tv show good-bye.

Unknown said...

Sex-linked: Children, spouses, groceries or the lack thereof, bill-paying, calendar-updating, RSVP-ing, in-laws, invites, evites, twitter, facebook, phone calls, emails, gossip, friends, enemies... you name it, we find it!

Non sex-linked: I've got nothing. Oh wait, sex. And sports. Men will definitely lose focus for either.

Jen P said...

Cat 1 - cooking meals.

Cat 2 - Browsing the internet news, amazon, facebook and other writers' blogs....

(No intended puns Tooloose)

ORION said...

My husband and I actually now are TV-less.
It's an experiment to see if it will last or we will be hopelessly out of touch.
Stayed tuned...
LOL!

Davin Malasarn said...

Ha! I agree that sacrifices have to be made. I actually started my blog just as I was finishing my novel, so, for me, the two helped each other. Interacting with other writers gave me the boost I needed to work again.

Heidi Willis said...

ummm. I think cleaning up the cat's hairballs is sex-linked.

:)