It’s Not You, It’s Me

Photo by Bella Motts via Creative Commons

Please don’t take this the wrong way. I love your work. I want to attend your event. I would kill to review your latest book. Team tweeting sounds fantastic. I want to support you! The truth is I stink at time management. There, I said it.

Feeling the Guilt

There are three kinds of guilt in the world—Jewish guilt, Catholic guilt and writer’s guilt. In a previous post I talked about “the living hell of social media.” Honestly it’s like an obsessed controlling boyfriend or girlfriend—take your pick—who demands that you pay attention to it all the time. Why haven’t you tweeted something hilarious in the last five minutes? Didn’t you say you would friend that guy from the other day on Facebook? Hello? Pinterest here! Pin something already! And what happens when you don’t bow to the pressure? Guilt, my friend, one-hundred proof Writer’s Guilt.

As a writer I am used to dealing with an overwhelming sense of guilt. Guilt over not spending more time with my family, over not going to gym more often, over consuming too much salt, drinking too much coffee, wearing sweatpants, making inappropriate observations out loud, answering the front door in my underwear, showering at three in the afternoon, eating Cap’n Crunch cereal out of the box and watching ‘SpongeBob’ marathons while cursing my “stupid writer’s block.”

Everything Is Important

So now add to all that my guilt over not helping you succeed. Look, you’re a wonderful person and a talented writer and all. I’d like nothing better than to see your latest title’s Amazon Bestsellers Rank zoom to one hundred. Really. The reason I don’t do more to make that happen is because I’m a mess. I haven’t learned yet how to compartmentalize all the little things that make up my day. I’m so dumb I leave my email program open while I write. I take calls. I stop in the middle of some really powerful word-bending to reply to a text. Why? Give me a sec while I sop up the last of my Ben & Jerry’s with an Olive Garden breadstick from two weeks ago.

It’s because I think everything is important.

And in some twisted universe of my own creation that may be true. But everything is not important at the same time. Maybe when I actually get away from the computer and spend time with my beautiful, longsuffering family, that’s the most important time in my life. And when I’m writing, that’s the most important time. And when I’m helping you, you are my Number One Priority. Oh but I wish it were that simple. It would mean I am truly organized.

Did you ever meet someone who is organized? With the pretty white Brocade pencil cup and the Hello Kitty sharpener? Don’t they just piss you off? Of course they do because writers are not organized. Fine. Stephen King is probably organized. But look where it got him. Fifty books in twenty-five years. Pish posh. I’ve got hummus stains on my keyboard. Top that, Steve!

Time Is Not Your Friend

We all know time is slipping away. We know it every time we look at the clock and realize we’ve only written five hundred words when we were shooting for a thousand. It comes with being a writer. I think a lot of it has to do with distractions—mostly of our own making by the way.

Here’s a hypothetical. You’re working on your book. You hear a familiar ding that tells you there’s an email. You stop and look to see what came in. It’s a link to a funny video your friend sent.

Do you stop everything and watch the video? Of course you do—you’re a writer. Anything to get away from that desperate, lonely feeling of squirting fresh blood onto a blank white page.

In the old, old days we might have sat at a writing desk and used a quill and bottle of India ink. There were still distractions though. Maybe we looked out our window and noticed a hummingbird. Or a deer. Or two farmers going at it over a pig. It was always something. Meanwhile the old grandfather clock in the foyer was ticking. Sometimes I imagine myself on my deathbed, muttering something about “just one more polish!”

Giving Back

The truth is that we are part of a community and we need to help others achieve their goals just as we help ourselves. As the community grows, so do we. But what happens when everyone is asking for your time? How do you pick and choose? How do you prioritize?

I am still struggling with that. I would love to hear your thoughts. Maybe there’s still hope before that old grandfather clock in the foyer stops ticking for good.

Related articles

When Priorities Change (thepriyas.com)
Writer with a Day Job by Aine Greaney (gwynplainelives.wordpress.com)
Tips for managing social media distrac (prakkypedia.prakky.com.au)


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