I can’t work at a messy desk. I need to relax with a few games of FreeCell before I get started. This email is way overdue. Just let me throw in a load of laundry. Need to make that dentist appointment. If I don’t get this birthday card in the mail, it won’t get there in time. It will only take a minute.
My mind is very creative when it comes to making excuses, finding distractions, justifying work delays. It’s a daily battle, between my writing goals and my reluctance to start typing.
And yet–sometimes it’s not that hard. When I forget myself, my ego, the possible outcomes. When I can see large projects in the tiniest of segments. One segment that I did two days ago was simply to photocopy a quote I want to use in my latest work-in-progress. Maybe that was all I could get done that day, but it moved the work forward, however incrementally. Greg Louganis said, “Focus on skills, not results.” Whatever it takes to trick my mind into taking action, I’m all for. Good habits help. Opening up a blank document and writing even one word helps. Sometimes writing something else helps. But I’m pretty sure all those other things in that first paragraph above don’t help. They drain my mental and physical energy, and all of a sudden, whoops, it’s time to make lunch. So, I’ve learned to do it first, “it” being the writing, or at least some tiny smidge of writing. Like Mark Twain said, “The secret to getting ahead is to get started.”
Sometimes I wish I were an accountant. I’m actually good with numbers. So, I could have been, back when I was supposedly “choosing” a career. But nooooo, I had to do something with more romance, more cachet. Like being a writer. But man, I sometimes envy accountants, bookkeepers, actuaries and the like. After all, the numbers either add up, or they don’t. If they don’t, there are various tricks and techniques to help you figure out the glitch. Then, AHA, problem solved. Numbers are not subjective. There’s no judgement from them or from an unseen “editor.” You never have a bunch of fellow accountants sitting around a table, making suggestions on how they would add up the numbers if it was their balance sheet. There’s never a need to stare at figures and wonder, is there a more accurate, more descriptive number, the way I sometimes agonize over word choice. It’s either the correct number or not. And numbers, too, can tell a story. The dwindling totals in a bank account. The set number of days between exposure and symptoms. The timelines that don’t add up, revealing gaps in an alibi. And bankers can be detectives. See 
I recently had new flooring installed in the upper level of my townhouse. This involved moving everything out of every room including the closets. I mean everything. Clothes, books, papers, small furnishings, the entire office setup. I was able to leave a few major pieces of furniture in place, namely the beds and one empty bookcase, which the installers were willing to maneuver around. As always, even though I had been on a weeding binge for several months leading up to the project, there was still a ton of stuff to deal with. The installers took two days for the job, but the staircase and landing were being recarpeted in a different material, which was backordered. They had to return the following week to finish the job. I couldn’t have been luckier, as they finished, literally, the day before the “stay-at-home” orders were broadcast. Now I have all the time in the world to put everything back in place. I can do it in a thoughtful, mindful way.
I’m lucky. I’ve always been a bit of a homebody, so extra time at home during these highly unusual circumstances doesn’t weigh on me as much as I know it does on others. Besides, there are all those sometimes boring, sometimes just challenging, chores that I never get around to because it’s hard to fit them in during the normal course of life and work. Sometimes, in order to do certain things, I feel like I need a substantial block of time without interruptions, which I rarely get–until now. Maybe you’re in the same boat. One way to use the time effectively ( other than plugging away on that WIP) is to refurbish your website or blog. Here’s what I’m doing:
I love this picture of London during the Blitz. These diehard readers didn’t have to cope with “safer at home.” But they still were under grave stress and the chance of very real physical attack from the German Luftwaffe. Yet, they couldn’t, or wouldn’t stay away from their favorite bookstore. These days, we readers are luckier than those were. We can order books through mail order, get ebooks from paid sources or through our libraries, and listen to audio books. Of course, if you’re like me, you had a ton of books piled up anyway. In fact, since all the libraries hereabouts have suspended operations, they have also stopped all returning of library materials, and extended the due dates uniformly till some future date. Right now, it’s June 1, but it could go longer. This is a real boon to me, since I had, at the time of the freeze, way more books checked out than I could possibly have finished in the normal time allowed, even with renewals. This is on top of the hundreds of currently unread books on my shelves and several audio books queued up. But if you’re still in need, here’s my new favorite mail order bookseller: 
I don’t think I can go negative in public. In these posts, I always want to be positive, encouraging and supportive of my fellow writers. So, I hate to be critical. I know how hard writing is. Plus, in this case, no one is asking for my feedback. But here it is, anyway.
I saw a call for a new anthology. I thought had a story in inventory that would work. I had written it a few years ago and run it by my critique partner. Stephanie made some astute comments and I revised the story accordingly. So, it was pretty much ready to go–or so I thought. Then I pulled out the hard copy and starting reading, ready to make a few minor tweaks. After the first two sentences I was appalled. “This is awful! Unreadable. Boring,” I thought to myself. “Why didn’t I see this before. And more important, how can I fix it?” And still more urgently, how can I fix it in time for the anthology’s deadline?
Lida Bushloper 