October 29th, 2005
Blogging as anti-displacement activity
Apologies for the lack of activity around here in last week or so, work has once again accelerated, leaving me very little time to do anything. I’ve spent so much time writing work stuff, that my own writing has been left untouched. A notebook lies by my bed, with not a word added to it in about two weeks. I leave it there in the hope I’ll find some time, and to remind myself that I’m getting away with not filling it up that easily, missy.
I am the queen of displacement activity. Leaving Cert. syndrome I call it (when you’re meant to be studying but instead are listening to Dave Fanning and taping things off the radio). I do it with with work occasionally but mostly it happens with my own writing. It goes something like this.
Proposal: “Hmm, I think I’ll try and work on that short story”
Actual Outcome: I end up listening to music and or rearranging my CDs.
or
Proposal: “Maybe I should try and flesh out that idea I have”
Actual Outcome: I decide go through my email and purge old messages.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the act of writing (and I feel this is where I should start inserting CW for creative stuff and WW for work writing), of ordering words, of starting something and not knowing where it will take you, which is equally applicable to CW as WW. When I don’t have an outlet for writing, I’m irritated, anxious to get back to it and longing for a whole day stretching in front of me, where I don’t have something I have to do.
At one point, Blogging was one such displacement activity. I would skive off from a review and shuffle in to Word Press. But I could kid myself that I was, in a way, writing. Lately though, even blogging seems like less of a compulsion and more of chore. I’ve seen various people get this way, Mish has been in abstentia on the blogging front and United Irelander took a break, only to return very quickly, albeit with a different approach that suited him better.
I’ll have a ponder over the next few days and figure out what to do. Ever word I write here is one I could be writing somewhere else…
October 29th, 2005 at 2:27 pm
Don’t give up on us now Sinead!
October 29th, 2005 at 6:58 pm
Before I started blogging I had no idea how difficult it was to actually maintain a blog. It’s hard I find to get the right balance between blogging for fun and just blogging for the sake of it.
Since I’ve cut down on posting I’ve found things far better though. It’s not a bad idea to take a break and then come back with batteries recharged.
Keep at it. You know you want to.;-)
November 2nd, 2005 at 1:54 am
Sinead, I know exactly where you’re coming from. Lately, I’ve been feeling blogging’s become a little bit like a chore and guilt has been piling up about not concentrating on the writing that actually has the potential to have a pay day.
But then I’ve got such a nice audience and I don’t want to lose them. So i’ve decided to compromise and blog a little less and work on my other work, but it’s hard as i feel the urge to go surfing on the net as another activity. however, yesterday and today, I started to map out the play adaptation of my novel and I’m dreaming about it playing in the US and Ireland one day and that’s got me very energized again. That, and I’ve taken up going to the gym again.
So don’t give up. Just take it easy for a while and just let your audience know what’s happening. They’ll stick with you. From one of your Irish fans on the other side of the pond
November 3rd, 2005 at 6:13 am
I wrote something similar about this yesterday–the overwhelming nature of distractions,
particularly on the internet. Sometimes I wonder how the old masters produced such long novels–and without the benefit of a computer or a delete key, but then I realize they also didn’t have blogs to visit or maintain, email to answer, etc.
And yet on the side of blogging, I find it loosens me up for my “real” writing. It also provides feedback as to what people respond to and what they don’t.
Anyway, just wanted to add my voice to the crowd: hope you don’t quit!
November 3rd, 2005 at 5:01 pm
Didn’t realise you have a slot on the Den? I happened to see it the other evening.
November 3rd, 2005 at 5:23 pm
Ah yes, my TTV film slot. Good fun, but ridiculously hard for me to stop talking after just three minutes.
Poor Elizabethtown. Got to rubbish it again the next day on The View.
Truly hideous film.