Reverb 10: Writing

Prompt: Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

This is such a loaded question for me. I do so many things everyday that likely do not contribute a single thing to my writing, yet most of them are things necessary tasks. Dishes? Laundry? Meal preparation? Diaper changes? Retrieving a mobile baby from furniture every five minutes? All necessities. What could I eliminate from my daily routines? Actually, I could stand to detach from my inbox a bit more. Recently, I signed up for a Gmail system tray notification application — probably not the best idea if I want to quit compulsively checking my email. However, I signed up with the idea that seeing the subject titles would suffice. Theoretically, that should be sufficient for my basis needs, but it’s become more of an attraction to log in and read the actual emails.

On the other hand, I feel I should do more to promote my daily writing, to focus more on making the time to do so. Sure, it might be nice to eliminate distractions, but then I’m focusing more on the distractions themselves. I feel that I don’t do enough to flesh out a time and place to sit and write on a regular basis. I find more often than not that I’m regularly in a situation that requires my attention to be elsewhere, and those situations tend to present as both important and urgent. Nothing’s more pressing than a little boy who’s discovered the thrill of climbing onto the couch, watching the horrified expressions on his mother’s face. The impish grin, the devious twinkle in his eyes — my son knows what he’s doing, and I fear my future with this child holds many terrifying rides. “Mommy, that one’s an inverted roller coaster! Let’s go on that!” Um, no thanks — I like my feet firmly planted on the ground, not dangling in midair while thrusting forward at 60 miles per hour. On the other hand, I’ll bet that would make for some seriously interesting reading.