Things I Did This Week Instead of Writing, Vol. 1

Posted by David Duhr in ABCs of Writing      32 comments

Mar
10

TL;DR version: I didn’t write this week. Here is a list of some of the stupid things I did instead. What’s your list of stupid things you did this week instead of write? Let us know in the comments below. Maybe a little public shaming can give us all a boost?

I didn’t write this week.

Usually when this happens I claim a lack of time. It’s so easy to say that, isn’t it? “I didn’t have time to write this week. Maybe next week.”

This is not how books get written.

The truth is, I had plenty of time this week to write. Outside of essential activities such as work, exercise, meals, sleep, and bathroom things, I had many open hours.

I’ll have probably the same amount of open hours next week, and the week after. So I figured a little public self-shaming, and the prospect of future public self-shaming, might give me some motivation to change this pattern.

Below is a list of things I did this week instead of write, and how I feel about them.

Leave your own list in the comments section. Maybe communally we can figure out some ways to help each other cut down on activities that we feel aren’t adding value to our lives and that we do at the expense of our writing.

The List

1. Played Dr. Mario, Tecmo Bowl and Super Mario Bros. on the new “classic” NES.

I’d say I spent two to four hours doing this. To what end? A little bit of nostalgia and some mild, mindless diversion, I suppose.

I did not write while I played these video games.

While I understand that not all — not even most — of my leisure time can (or even should?) go to writing, some of these activities seem more fruitful than others.

This one is not among the more fruitful.

(Question: Should writing be considered something that occurs during “leisure” or “free” time? Or does doing so make it easier to dismiss as essential? How do you view writing: more as a leisure “free time” activity or more like a job?)

2. Put together some number of jigsaw puzzles on JigZone.com (a most horribly unfortunate name).

What were they of? I don’t even remember. Birds and shit. Their only purpose was to waste some down time. Eight minutes here, eight minutes there. Do that once a day and oops, there are fifty-six minutes that could’ve gone to writing. Because:

I did not write while I puzzled.

3. Watched various episodes of the following television programs: Scrubs, Arrested Development, Gilmore Girls, Z Nation, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Scream.

Not only is this too much TV, but some of these were episodes I had seen before. Repeated viewings of TV shows is an odd thing, I think. I’m sure we derive comfort from it, and I imagine there are psychological reasons for doing it. But!

I did not write while I watched these programs.

And I hesitate to calculate, or even estimate, the time I spent doing this. It would probably be alarming.

(N.B.: I am watching Scrubs on Netflix while I write this. It’s a problem.)

4. Read some books.

I debated whether or not to include reading. For a writer, is there a more important leisure activity? Is it even a leisure activity, or is every minute spent reading also a minute spent learning about writing?

In the end, pleasure-reading is still a leisure activity, and as such, it’s time that could have been spent writing. So.

Included in that reading was Stuart Dybek’s The Coast of Chicago. 

Stuart Dybek is so good that he makes me want to give up trying.

Stuart Dybek is so good that he made George Saunders overhaul his style — his entire gestalt as a writer, really — and become the writer we know today.

So, different responses to coming up against overwhelming talent. I prefer Saunders’.

I did not write while I read these books.

However, I do think that a lot of what we read goes into a lot of what we write. So I don’t feel bad for doing this reading. But if I could have done an hour less of it and filled that time with writing, I’d be happier.

But not as happy as I’d be if I wrote during some of the time I instead spent playing video games and watching TV.

Your Turn

What does your list look like? And how do you feel about each item on it?

How can we use these lists to motivate us to write more?

WriteByNight co-founder David Duhr is copy editor and fiction editor at the Texas Observer and has written for the Dallas Morning News, Electric Literature, Publishing Perspectives, and others.

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