By angry round thing, I mean vicious
circle, the usual one, it has returned in its usual guise and posed
its constant question. Am I thoroughly miserable because I can't
manage to get any writing done, or am I unable to get any writing
done because I am thoroughly miserable? Now given that there is
really nothing else in my life to make me thoroughly miserable, I am
going to plump for the former. This has been going on for years, I
decide to do something useful (say record some lovely music, or write
a book) and then get hit dead centre with a foul case of writers
block. Obviously it has happened again, and when I manage to find
half an hour or so to get some work done, I stare blankly at the
screen, devoid of ideas before telling the computer to go fuck
itself, turning it off and doing something else instead, in the vain
hope that inspiration will strike. It invariably doesn't. Hey ho.
Anyhow, for this weeks procrastination,
I spent a goodly long time justifying the existence of this blog to
myself after it was pointed out to me that there is no good reason
for anyone else to give a flying fuck about my inability to write
myself out of employment. This is entirely true, but as I seem to
remember setting out in the first instalment of this essentially
futile gesture, it may serve to ensure I do some work if an entirely
fictitious audience is tutting disapprovingly at me online as I
document my failures. The dog's scathing looks are no longer enough
to push me into working.
So last weekend, I set up in my
summerhouse, turned on the laptop, and suddenly discovered I had a
really good wifi signal out there, and scrolled through twitter for
an hour or so, before remembering why I was out there. I then dug up
a load of old short stories I wrote many years ago in another fit of
trying to exercise my mental muscles, and read them as well. Then it
got cold, so I went inside and watched telly in front of the fire
with the dog. Much nicer.
This week, I have been learning a bunch
of songs for a dep gig, which is less procrastination, and more
productive, so I feel justified in that. I also had 2 rehearsal
sessions with 2 bands I am actually in, so that was ok as well. Less
easy to balance is the evening I spent with my guitar and a bunch of
amusing Nick Drake tunings seeing if I could come up with some
interesting musical ideas to play about with and maybe write some new
songs. It ended just as badly, not a single idea (well I've got 3
lines of lyrics to play with and no music to go with it) and with the
usual listening to records and drinking cider.
Even this blog of procrastination is
late this week, as I was finding other ways to do things that were
more fun. Yesterday I jumped at the chance to do some modelling for
my Wife's photography project, and didn't attempt to hurry her along
(as I normally would) even as the 2nd hour of coldness and cramp
rolled around. I took on a really, really difficult photoshop project
from someone at work who asked me for a favour, and rather than
saying “Oh no, I am far too busy to do that” or even doing it at
work rather than working, I spent 3 hours carefully stitching
pictures of other people's family together in attractive and
interesting ways.
Procrastination is still very much
alive, and in case any of you have not been following this properly,
I have not written a word, or even managed to come up with the extra
sub-plots I need to finish the full plotting of the thing, since I
first started this blog 3 weeks ago. Fairly impressive isn't it? I am
now about to open my notes and try and finish some of it ready to get
some work done. I fully expect that in less than half an hour, I will
have wandered off to my temporary studio, and will be playing Angus
Young riffs on my SG and claiming that this is a useful way to spend
my sunday afternoon. Let it be known that it is not, and never will
be. Though it is fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment