Discriberity

There is a strange and unpleasant phenomenon that I have experienced on multiple occasions.  I don't think there's a title for it.  I might be the only person to experience this (#delusionsofgrandeur).  I take it upon myself to name this beast.

Discriberity: (dis-cry-bear-ity) n. an intense inclination to do anything other than write, despite there being no logical reason not to write.
Example: Sue experienced a bout of discriberity, as she reread her plot outline, designed costumes for her characters, and taught herself to draw instead of writing the first words of her novel.
Clarification: this is different from writer's block in that in writer's block there's often a reason for avoiding writing, such as a plot problem, characters not cooperating, or some other complication that needs solving.  In discriberity, there is absolutely nothing holding the writer back.  It is, of sorts, a mental block.

I reread my plot outline.

I designed costumes for my characters.

I taught myself to draw.

I even wrote a blog post.

There's nothing left to do but write the first words of my novel.  With great reluctance, with an overwhelming sense of foreboding and discriberity, with sadness that I have to leave you with such a short blog post...

I go to my doom.

Let's admit it

February is a blah month.

It's so blah, it got its own lame holiday.  Sort of like Thanksgiving is a consolation prize for November having to be November, except that Thanksgiving is a homey, warm, comfortable holiday with family and pumpkin pie (or better yet, French silk) and those little squishy white buns and you don't have to have a significant other in order to have a nice time.  Valentine's Day, on the other hand, is a sort of a consolation prize, but more of a slap in the face.  The people who are most in need of chocolate are those not in relationships.  But the primary way of getting chocolate on V Day is by being in a relationship.  A conundrum if I ever saw one.

Anyhow, my point is that February is a depressing, grey, slumpy month that doesn't even have Thanksgiving. I don't think it's humanly possible to be inspired in February.*

So I'm going to blame an entire month of mostly not writing and not doing anything but practical homework on the fact that it was February.

(Okay, yeah, it's March now and almost April, but maybe this February was blahher than usual and the aftereffects slouched into March.)

I have finally picked myself up and, doggonit, I'm going to write.

That's a promise.

Either blog posts or snippets or whole novels, I will write!  Doggonit, I will WRITE or I will WRITE about NOT WRITING!

*The exception being that I did come up with the idea for my current project in February like four years ago.  But that's mostly irrelevant.

Pieces of Inspiration

On the rare, rare, rare occasion that writer's block hits and I decide to do something slightly more productive than watch videos on YouTube,* I like to try and find inspiration from outside sources, such as music, other books, or pictures.

*rare being that I do something more productive than YouTube.  Not the writer's block part, unfortunately.

Writer's block is sort of here.  So words aren't really working.  So I'm going to use as few as possible.  Here are some inspiring picture.  PictureS.  Picture plural.  Sometimes I think I should just leave all my typos in my posts and just let the world mock me.  Because some of them are funny.  I amuse myself.  Heh.  OKAY.  PICTURES.

Be inspired.

P.S. If you're super inspired, leave a couple sentence teaser/story in the comments.  That'd be cool.  And stuff.

How I Write

This, my lovely audiences, is how a typical 1-2 hours of writing goes for me.

*boots up laptop*
*goes and makes a hazelnut latte*
*comes back and opens up the appropriate Word document as well as an internet browser*
*Checks email, Facebook, Figment, (occasionally Pinterest), blogger, replies to email, pokes someone back on Facebook, gleefully counts the additional page views on my blog*
*closes unnecessary webpages (everything but email)*
*writes for ten minutes straight*
*feels very accomplished*
*checks email again*
*checks to see if someone has poked me back on Facebook*
*writes for five minutes*
*opens a different document and rereads something I wrote a month ago*
*get an idea from that*
*open a new document and spends fifteen minutes writing a story snippet with no point, purpose, or future that no one will ever read*
*remembers a few lyrics of a song I heard on the radio last night, googles them, finds the correct song, adds it to my Spotify list, and listen to it on repeat a few times*
*writes for five minutes*
*thinks of a great idea for a blog post*
*logs into blogger and starts writing the blog post*
*thinks of a witty Twitter post*
*gets on Twitter, remembers that I despise Twitter, decides against adding to its overall stupidity*
*writes for five minutes*
*makes breakfast for younger brothers (when I'm at home)*
*finishes blog post*
*reluctantly Tweets about it (but only because I need the page views!)*
*writes for another ten minutes*

Things I Would Rather Do Than Write.

• Write blog posts.
• Edit blog posts.
• Edit papers for my friends.
• Make my bed.
• Fold laundry.
• Read a good book
• Read things that I have already written.
• Edit things that I have already written.
• Study for finals (as in the finals at the end of next semester).
• Clean out my inbox.
• Order next semester's books.
• Google my name (hey, I didn't know I was that I sang the National Anthem at a basketball game when I was eleven.  *pats self on the back*)
• Run twelve laps around the football field.
• Look up funny pictures.
• Email funny pictures to my younger brother.
• Copy my notes onto electronic format.
• Copy my novel onto paper by hand.
• Write angsty journal entries.
• Giggle over said angst.
• Make character profiles.
• Design costumes for my characters.
• Hold conversations with my characters.
• Organize my I-tunes playlists.
• Anything.
• Anything.
• ANYTHING.