I'm procrastinating

I’m intentionally not doing the things that I came here to do. And by here, I don’t mean the indomitable but recently dormant force that is Kristen Writes Things.

By here, I mean this table, in this hipster warehouse-cum-coffeeshop next door to a bike shop and a craft brewery with food trucks. This table, which is littered with notes about my novel and crumbs from a delicious bacon-and-onion marmalade mini-galette thing that was so good it’s probably been made illegal in three states and possibly even a few US territories. I’m sitting here making choices that run absolutely counter to why I chose to put on outside clothes and park myself in a coffeeshop.

I got dressed and went somewhere to do the thing. I am not doing the thing. Instead, I’m doing this other thing which is not on my to-do list.

The problem is, I keep reading books. Good books, across genres. Books published by traditional shops. Books published independently. Books that look like they’re independent but are probably trad published with huge budgets thrown their way to make them look independent.

Cozy mysteries. Monster romance. Cozy mysteries with monster romance. Fantasies that are comedies. Serial killers falling in love and ruining how I look at Cookies and Cream ice cream.  

I’ve read good things and terrible things that I immediately DNFed. All the things. And all of these things are making it impossible for me to finish my draft.

Perhaps the problem is that I’m overinspired? I read something and then want to emulate it. But then, I don’t really want to emulate it, because I have a fucking plan. (It’s a good plan, too. Damn it!) But the issue remains that I am tempted to change the bones of my novel because I enjoyed something dark or light or funny or low stakes or high stakes and LOVED IT TOO MUCH.

Or hated it with the fire of a thousand suns and don’t want to fail in a similarly spectacular fashion.

One thing I do know? That I’m not interested in writing anything smutty, despite reading an absolute wheelbarrow full of smut weekly. My fingers won’t do it. Surprising, but true.

As an aside, there is a guy next to me who has literally used the phrase “Shoot my shot” 99 times in the space of 5 minutes. I don’t know what he wants to shoot his shot at, but I’m 50/50 on whether I want his shot (in business, love, or climbing Everest) to succeed. He seems like a nice guy. I’m just annoyed that he’s having a FaceTime conversation loudly next to me. I’m tempted to Google synonyms for “Shoot my shot” and slide them across the table.

I do need to get back to this chapter. I got to page 100. I’m fully 1/3 of the way done. If I can just get to 110, I think I’ll start to fly again, but damn… do I just not wanna.

But I will. Begrudgingly. With a knowledge deep in my heart that it’s both ironic and true that it’s possible to hate your hobbies and still deeply want to spend time doing them.