The great procrastinator

Today I was supposed to write.

I’m supposed to write every day.  That’s the advice everyone gives.  No matter what, if you’re serious about writing you must find some time to write.  Get up early, or stay up late.  Go out for a lunch break.  Forget the housework for now.  Just write!

And…yeah, it’s not that easy though, is it?

Writing and parenthood.  They don’t really go together.  I was supposed to write my great novel while I was on maternity leave (forgive me lord, but I was stupid back then.)  I was supposed to go to NCT classes and lose all of my baby-weight by the time the Goblin was six months old, but I didn’t do these things either.  I’m a rebel.  I play by my own rules.

Yet there is, of course, boundless common sense in the advice above.  If you’re not actually sitting down and putting pen to paper, or finger to keyboard, then it’s all just excuses and white noise.  But it’s a hard ask.  Every single day?  I don’t even have breakfast every single day. 

I’m not, of course, trying to make out that I am a special case – the only person who can’t possibly find the time in their busy schedule to sit down and do the thing they actually want to (and need to) do.  Everyone has a reason for putting it off from time to time, and everyone of these reasons will be subtly different and equally important.  Me?  I managed, to my own surprise as much as anyone’s, to successfully reproduce (I think… I haven’t checked the records, but I think I’m possibly the only person in the world who has ever managed to have a baby, so I speak with some authority on the subject.)  And they’re marvellous, maddening excuses distractions.  You want me to put the kettle on?  Sorry, can’t – baby’s crying.  You want me to give you a quick call?  Sorry – the tiny human that I GREW IN MY BODY just made the cutest noise, and I’m waiting to see if he’ll do it again.  Housework needs doing?  But he needs my undivided love and attention and I can’t possibly pick up the duster in case he does something unutterably adorable and I miss it and he feels rejected and this becomes the first step towards a conversation he’ll have with his children in the future that ends with the words “and that’s why we’re not spending Christmas with nanny this year.”  

And so it goes with writing.  When the Goblin was tiny I was too dog-tired to remember the difference between handwash and toothpaste, let alone remember how to write coherant dialogue*.  Nowadays…  Well, I can’t get up early to write because NO ONE WAKES UP EARLIER THAN MY SON!  Seriously, I haven’t needed an alarm clock in over two years.  Then I either go to work or take care of the child.  Did I mention he’s a toddler?  He just learned to climb things and jump.  Yay.  At the weekends I try to catch up with the housework in tandem with my husband, and in the evenings I am tired.  So tired.  I regret every nap that I ever refused to take as a child.  I try to find time to write, truly I do.  The mind is willing but the body is half-sprawled across the bed browsing Pinterest.

So today I intended to write.  My parents had kindly agreed to take the Goblin for two days and one night – whilst they have him overnight once every two weeks this was one of the first times since I returned to work where this coincided with my days off.  Day one was housework – there was no escaping that one.  Day two would be for me.

Day one went as planned.  Houseworked my little cotton socks off, I did.  All the toys were in their rightful places, the bathroom was sparkling, the dvds were alphabetically ordered (in retrospect, I didn’t need to do that one).  Then things went wrong.  On day two a thought occurred to me: what other housework tasks can I get done without a small fearless opportunist here to thwart my every move?  I won’t bore you with the details (I had to go to the local hardware store three times!  Control yourselves) but the end result is that my oven is now 70-80% cleaner than it was this morning.  But writing?  Not so much.

And…that’s ok.  I’m writing this blog post, so that counts.  Somedays, though, you have to ‘clean the oven’.  And that’s the phrase I’m going to use from now on when I’m trying really really hard not to feel guilty for not getting a bit of writing done each day.  Even if it’s because I’m browsing Pinterest again.

 

 * Don’t worry, I only ended up with minty-fresh hands.