Finally prodded myself to write something for the neglected blog.
I’d prevaricate further, but I can’t be arsed. Just about sums me up lately. Okay, I’ve been unwell for a few weeks, so didn’t feel up to doing much, but that’s behind me now. Didn’t even die, so was only a piddling chest infection not the Black Death. I’ve started to feel myself again, (Oh, I know, pathetic, but my childish nature still keeps peeping out from my time-ravaged exterior) and there really is no excuse for not getting on with the new writing project, is there?
When does indolence morph into downright laziness? I can’t be bothered to seek an answer. I could, and have, claim physical debility after so many weeks of enforced inactivity. Six weeks of steroids has added massively to my girth; to the extent of making a friend who last saw me two years ago visibly blanch when we met recently. She’s far too nice a person to actually say, ‘you fat git,’ but I’m certain she thought it. Okay, that’s easily sorted: self-denial, strict diet, take more exercise and become a recluse over the Christmas period – a doddle. The refusal of the brain to kick into gear is rather more disconcerting.
I want to write. I have ideas aplenty. Transferring those ideas onto paper/hard drive is far more difficult than it should be. Having ideas means this isn’t ‘writers’ block.’ Pure laziness, then? Well, yes and no. I revel in idleness; it’s in my DNA, but this usually manifests itself as doing what I want when I want to do it. Within the boundaries of a marriage where I have, at best, a 49% share of the decision-making process. From choice, I hasten to add. It suits me to be a facilitator rather than an instigator, most of the time. I go along.
Sitting with laptop on knee isn’t the answer. I have to want to write. Forcing the process won’t help. That’s my main quibble with the otherwise excellent NaNoWriMo scheme; the necessity to write within set parameters. A fixed number of words within a fixed timescale. Saying as much brought me much grief from the Nano community, even though I’d specifically said it was only a personal view and my current inability to write anything at all for weeks merely confirms my unsuitability for the task.
Perhaps an old ally, Authonomy, can help. I recently took my latest book off the site as it’s now available in paperback and as an E-book, not to mention being free as a Kindle book, with the intention of forcing myself to come up with at least 10,000 words, arranged in more or less the right order, to post on the site. Authonomy has its detractors, but as a method of gleaning opinion on a writing project it has no equal. A minimum of 10,000 words is required. I have three unfinished books, each with 50,000 words ‘in the bank,’ but it’s the new project that excites me most.
Right then. Write, you idle wretch, write. Drag from the far reaches of what passes for a brain all those ideas that have been festering within for so long. Do it. Do it now. Well, not now, obviously, as the football’s just about to start, but after that. Look, here’s the choice – watch celebrities I’ve scarcely heard of prove they can’t dance, then observe truly talentless people being praised to the skies by judges whose very appearance on my television screen provokes me to ungovernable rage. That’s one option. The other is to write my novel. Not much of a quandary, eh? Writing it is.
As a footnote, I should point out my former claim of having only a 49% share of decision-making has been derided. Apparently, I get my own way ‘99% of the time, at least.’ Obviously, I welcome debate and allow for alternative opinions. I have to include this or face as yet undefined sanctions. Footnote added as instructed, under duress. If only I wasn’t so lazy, I’d argue, but there’s the dilemma du jour in a sentence.
Not much of a blog post, this. Not exactly War and Peace, but given the constraints under which I function at present, this is a tiny step, a baby step, along the road to recovery and redemption. As the friend I mentioned earlier, the one too polite to comment on my appearance, said en passant, ‘ at least you can write, even when you’re too knackered to do anything else. It’s not exactly tiring is it, writing? Any fool can write.’ Er, yes. Quite.
Bugger. Did a comment. Lost it. Something along the lines of whining (what else?) about why is one so resistant to something so ultimately self-indulgent. Instead wallowing in laziness. What? too lazy to type. We’re not talking coal mines here, dude. Anyway, was trying to big up the means by which one might pump up the attraction quotient. Like imagining self at a party, holding court, the faces agleam with interest. No one interrupting or talking across you or making you repeat something because you gabbled and were prattling nonsense. So if one looked at it as satisfying some ghastly power-hunger then that might do the trick.
I would say that after a period of what sounds to me to be quite a debilitating illness it is very common to suffer from depression. Mild or more severe one of the symptoms of depression in my experience is this horrible guilty feeling that – I should get up and do something but I’d rather just sit here. That said (and this is in no way a medical opinion but simply my own personal experience) the best thing to do is actually force yourself to do it – regard it as treatment as much as the medicine you took. If you broke your leg you would need physio to regain the strength, think of it as physio for the brain. Go on – 500 words that’s all about a frog – go on. It’ll take you 15 minutes max and then you can go and watch those twinkling feet eurgh