Distraction/Inaction, or “Putting creativity on a schedule kind of sucks”

The following is a live stream of my thoughts as I sit down to write this post for the arbitrary Tuesday/Friday schedule I’ve set up for myself.

I’ve got my iPad open, I’ve got a cup of coffee, my dogs are snuggled up against me — I’m ready to go!

... JK, gotta poop!

**10 minutes later**

OK, that was totally unavoidable. I don’t know how your bodies work, but for me, a No. 2 typically comes on FAST, and I can’t ignore it. But seriously, NOW I’m ready to write. So... inspiration, you can strike me at any time. Really, I’ll listen to whatever you have to say. I even put the women’s European Curling Championship on TV so that I would have some background noise playing but nothing that would distract me. Did you know the women’s European Curling Championship is sponsored by gruyere cheese? The website apparently is gruyere.com/fromage, which tickles me for reasons I can’t quite explain.

**5 minutes later**

I got distracted by the gruyere website. It’s my second-favorite cheese, right behind Comte, which means that it’s frequently my first-favorite cheese because it’s way easier to find at a standard grocery store. In any case, the gruyere website had this recipe for an omelette, which, you guys have to this check out because it seems bananas to me. They tell you to separate the egg whites from the yolks, but then mix them back together again ... why? And what the hell is a “baking hoop” anyway?

But this blog is not about gruyere cheese or baking hoops. I’m not sure what it’s about yet, but it’s all in the typing, right? I’m just a monkey trying to write Shakespeare right now. And in trying to link to the definition of the Infinite Monkey Theorem, I have discovered there is a winery in Denver with that name, which I have to admit is a pretty good name for a place that puts wine in cans.

**5 minutes later**

I’ve continued to waste time looking up wineries and probability theorems, and I’ve written nothing of any usefulness. Which I suppose is appropriate, if I’m comparing the act of trying to find creativity to the infinite monkey theorem, which actually includes the sentence, “In the case of the entire text of Hamlet, the probabilities are so vanishingly small as to be inconceivable.” Technically not zero, I suppose, but HIGHLY unlikely.

Ugh. I need another cup of coffee.

**5 minutes later**

So I’ve set up the expectation that I will update this blog on Tuesdays and Fridays, but who is creative on a damn schedule anyway? Did J.K. Rowling say, “From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today I will dream up a portion of the Potterverse”? I feel like I’ve heard other writers say they put themselves on a writing schedule, but maybe that’s just the people I know who exist in the hyper-organized bubble of Washington, D.C. Isn’t a schedule anathema to creativity anyway? Shouldn’t it just STRIKE you, like so much lightning? This is bullshit.

I have to turn this curling championship off.

**10 minutes later**

I switched over to Netflix and fired up an episode of Parks and Rec. Currently, we stream Netflix through our Nintendo Wii, and every time I load it up now Netflix puts an ominous warning on the screen that it will “no longer be supported on this device” by the end of January. I feel like that’s another metaphor of some kind for my blogging. Like, who writes blogs anymore? Who READS blogs anymore? There was a heyday from like 2009-2011, and now what? Facebook would have me believe the unwashed masses out there exclusively watch video these days. I should have created a YouTube channel. I feel like silent film star Clara Bow trying (and failing) to adapt to a world of talkies.

Actual photo of me, trying to write a blog post while the rest of the world is watching videos of puppies.

I should make breakfast. And at some point I need to take the dogs for a walk. They’re quietly snoozing on the couch after a big day yesterday (they would NOT settle down during yesterday’s Thanksgiving festivities despite being taken on an extra-long walk in the morning!!!), but at some point they’ll definitely need to poop, just like me at the beginning of this post.

Eh, I suppose I should just go now. I give up. At this point I’m blatantly watching Parks and Rec instead of writing. I’ve got a boxing class to get to in about an hour, and laundry to fold after that. Maybe today just wasn’t right for creativity.

Sigh. I’ll try again on Tuesday.