Make Me

Things have been slow on the novel front. For one thing, I'm auditing a class at my husband's school, and I have a paper due next week--I've never written an exegesis in my whole life, so I've been spending my time procrastinating on my paper instead of on my novel. This week, I'll be staring at Facebook and thinking about how much I need to be working on my theological project, not my literary project. What a change of pace, eh?

For another thing-- this whole being-a-grownup-and-having-a-day-job-that-pays-me-money-so-we-can-eat-and-stay-alive thing is totally cramping my writing style. I keep saying, "Oh, when I get home tonight, I'll definitely work on my novel for a bit," and then I spend the whole evening watching America's Next Top Model and eating an entire box of maple cream cookies from Trader Joe's. Or I'll say, "Hey, this weekend should be novel writing time," and then that weekend is sleeping in and eating chocolate chip pancakes time, instead.

See, what I really liked about NaNoWriMo was that it kept me from making excuses. After the first week, I had to write a bit every day, or else I'd fall too far behind to win and I'd end up throwing away all the previous effort I'd made. Writing on one day meant that I had to keep writing the next day, in order to avoid wasting all the effort I'd put in the previous day.

Now, I have no way to put a stop to the endless Facebooking, the forum posts (although--man alive, I gave this chick a major verbal smackdown this week on my married people's message board), the chocolate consumption, and the half-hearted reading of TIME Magazine while trying not to fall asleep in a bubble bath. I'm just so tired and frustrated after work that I simply want to relax and think about nothing at all.

This does not work well as a creative process.

C'mon, motivation...where the hell are you?