It always happens. I have time, I have space, my to do list is minimal. I want to write. But can I think of anything to blog about? Anything interesting, that doesn’t dry up after a false start and a few half baked sentances which sits in my ‘Drafts’ folder for months? Of course not. Change the scene. I have a to- do list as long as my arm, several deadlines of some kind, a house that needs attention, busy weekends and some kind of attempt at sleep training or something equally time-consuming. Oh, wait, I can’t seem to stop blogging.
It happened in January, when we had just moved house, Phoebe was due in less than a month, and I had three deadlines. It happened when I was at uni, launching into a new term with lots of reading and essays to sort. This month, it’s NaNoWriMo, and whilst that isn’t going too badly, I seem to think of something new I must just pop in the Drafts folder, or perhaps just write and publish, before getting on with the novel I have committed to writing.
Procrastination is one of those strange things in life; all the things you didn’t want to or didn’t feel like you could do, suddenly become top priorities or the easy things when something bigger and more daunting looms. With many student friends, and having been an expert in this myself, I know all too well the joys of room, or house-tidying, baking, washing up and hoovering, as well as the more obvious time killers, facebook, ‘research’ and staring-into-space. It is nice to have a drive to do housework, but blogging as procrastination is a kind of productivity which is entirely more satisfying than that.
Perhaps it is the fact that having lots to do is already engaging my brain and so thinking of blog post ideas is an easier leap than in a more relaxed time; perhaps it’s just the procrastinator in me, which wants to put off those things I really ‘ought’ to be doing, which cultivates inspiration. Perhaps one of the perks of doing Nanowrimo is that not only do I [hopefully] come out with a draft of a novel, I also have a newly invigorated, creative spark in my imagination which is not only applicable to fiction writing, but to blogging. Whichever way it is, I suppose I shouldn’t complain.
Does anyone else find it easier to blog when you’re busy? Is it just getting those creative juices flowing, or the best kind of procrastination?!
Butterflies & Roses 