Of Distractions and Quiet Muses by Konnie Enos

 Despite multiple notes that I had a blog post to write yesterday, I did not get it done.

What did I do yesterday?

After spending more time than I should not doing anything productive because I didn’t want to tackle paying our bills, I finally opened everything I needed to get that chore done. Which took considerably longer than it should have in light of how much I actually got done.

My first obstacle was Jerry and the mild argument we had about how much money he’d already spent and from the account I’d told him not to touch because I needed all that money for the bills. It took nearly two hours to figure out, and re-figure out, what I had to juggle around to make sure everything was covered.

Next, I had to tackle making sure my Quicken records were balanced with the bank records. Then I had to make sure all our bills were paid. Normally this would have taken about half an hour but I kept getting interrupted.

After we discussed his spending, he found multiple reasons to interrupt what I was doing. One would think since he was in the same room with me and saw all the material I use to track our finances scattered around me, that he would understand I was busy, but apparently not.  He even handed his phone to me, not once, but three times to deal with one issue we had, and the last one required me to stop what I was doing to deal with some emails and other paperwork.

Then there is Royce, also here in the house and he takes great delight in telling me about the stories he is reading and what happened this time in the newest chapters. He came in at least once. Thankfully somewhere between everything strewn around and the fact I wasn’t looking up from my screen clued him in on the fact I was indeed too busy to have a conversation with him.

Now Melinda did come into my bedroom once but she didn’t even say a word to me. Of course, I was in the bathroom as she entered but she was smart enough to understand why I had everything strewn over my bed and just dropped the mail and left. I probably wouldn’t have even known she’d been the one to get the mail if I hadn’t seen her leaving my room.

Considering that’s all who was in the house at the time, you would have thought the interruptions would end there. You’d be wrong because I have other family members. I heard from all my children and Bonnie yesterday.

First was Clarissa, though she didn’t interrupt my efforts to do our finances. She’d called before I got breakfast. So not an interruption. It was fun talking to her and my youngest grandbaby while my son-in-law took the older one to school.

Then two people managed to both call and text me yesterday. Tony texted me while I was paying bills which required me to stop what I was doing to respond to him. He then called me later in the evening, after I’d finished paying all the bills. Then Bonnie called me while I was busy, though it was a short conversation. This she followed up with a text conversation later in the evening about a Facebook post our brother had made, which she’d clearly misread. I’d already seen it since I was on Facebook unwinding at that hour.

Finally, Tina. Though she didn’t interrupt me. Jerry did. He insisted I contact her right away. So I had to stop again and text another child to ask her one question.

When all was said and done, I ignored all reminders and indications I needed to write this post and instead decided to unwind on Facebook. I justified this by the fact I had no ideas to write about anyway.

I finally decided I needed to either stay up half the night trying to write while fighting sleep or get some sleep and get up early to get this written. Getting sleep won.

None of this gave me any ideas but when my alarm went off this morning I dutifully opened my laptop and a blank Word document and just started typing about why I didn’t get this done yesterday.

The long answer is this post trying to blame everything on the interruptions I had yesterday. The short answer is far closer to the truth. I went down the rabbit hole that is Facebook for several hours instead.

I tend to opt for distraction hoping my muse will strike me. However, I usually have no idea until I start writing. My muse prefers action before inspiration, most of the time.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Of Writing, Sleep and Other Distractions by Konnie Enos

 

Last night, as it was getting later in the evening and a good time to go to bed, I was moaning because I didn’t have an idea for a post, and I seriously didn’t feel well which made thinking about something to write even harder. I was seriously thinking about just writing, “I’m sick and can’t think.” And leaving my post at that.

About then, Jerry decides he’s going to bed and talks me into doing the same, even though I haven’t written my post yet. He said that you think better when you’re well-rested and the ideas always come after a good night’s sleep.

Well, I did lie down, but laying down doesn’t mean I’ll get a good night's sleep. Most of the time, I’m never quite comfortable and I wake up two or three times a night. Then when I do finally give up in the morning, it’s because I’m so uncomfortable a change in position is necessary. Which is usually what prompts me to go to bed in the first place.

Yes, that’s right. I go to bed at night because I get so uncomfortable sitting here that I simply have to change positions and the only one left is laying down. Then I get up in the morning because I am again that uncomfortable and I need to sit up again.

But being uncomfortable doesn’t help you get the best sleep.

So last night, I’m trying to get in as comfortable a position as possible and Jerry in all his sweetness does everything he can to help me, even to the point of making him less than comfortable.

I slept pretty well last night. I didn’t even have to change my position a bunch of times. I only did it once. Then when my alarm went off this morning I was already awake. I’d been lying there for a few minutes trying to decide if I wanted to get up yet. The only reason I hadn’t gotten up yet, was that I still had no clue what I was going to write about.

 Of course, when my alarm went off, I had to get up. I had to get my computer out and I had to get writing or I wouldn’t have anything to post this morning. But opening my computer up and starting Word doesn’t mean the ideas will come.

So I’m sitting at my computer, attempting to write something when I happen to notice what time it is.

I look around me and listen.

No one is moving about and no dogs are barking.

Jerry is still curled up in bed beside me.

I look at the time and then look around again. Nothing has changed.

I attempt to wake Jerry up. He does a “hmm,” thing and goes back to sleep.

I look at the time again.

Okay fine. I have less than an hour to get my as-yet-unwritten post up but it’s apparently more important that I take the time to feed some fur babies (and make sure Mabel gets her pills) than write my post.

Normally when it’s time to feed our fur babies, I’m alerted to the fact because Melinda heads to the cat food bin, which I can see from my bed, and the dogs start barking, a lot, to ensure I wake up and or move (depending on if it’s morning or evening).

I don’t even see Melinda until I’m already heading out of my bedroom. Our dogs start barking.

“I thought you weren’t getting up.”

“Of course, I’m getting up. It’s barely seven now.”

I head up the hallway to feed the dogs and they stop barking, though Xavier is whining about getting into Tina’s old bedroom. “It’s been seven long enough for me to notice.”

So this morning, we didn’t have the cacophony of dog barking because I was already heading for their bowls.

 But that just means I had already run out of time to write my half-written post.

So I get back to my computer and type words as quickly as they come to me, hoping I can finish in time only to get distracted from my task yet again.

This time by a text message.

“Yes, Bonnie. I know. I’m working on it.”

At least I got some good sleep last night, and I’m feeling a bit better this morning. I haven’t even wheezed yet, so no nebulizing treatments yet to keep the wheezing from distracting me from my writing.

Maybe I’ll get through today without that distraction.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Of Quiet Muses and Low Blood Sugar by Konnie Enos

Okay, it’s Wednesday morning again, and my turn to post something. What am I doing? Staring at a blank page wondering what to write about. Any ideas that I have produced aren’t sufficient to write more than a handful of lines. So I’m stuck again.

I’ve even attempted to work on my stories.

As a rule, all I manage is to read through what I have without any ideas to finish the unfinished ones or improve the ones that are all but finished. Though I suppose my fantasy is ready for some critics, and beta reads. And I have made some improvements to my sci-fi, which I am still tweaking.

Everything else, I can read them but can’t seem to figure out how to finish them. Similar to what I’m experiencing with writing my posts. I have some rough ideas but I have no idea how to flesh them out.

If I do manage to start typing something, someone will come along and talk to me and say or do something to distract me from what I’m attempting to do. Every time this happens and I go back to my screen only to find I’ve completely lost my train of thought.

This leaves me wishing I could type uninterrupted but that never happens.

If I type during daylight hours, my kids will come up with some reason to distract me. If I type at either end of the day, first thing in the morning or at the end of the day, Jerry is bound to find some reason to talk to me about something. Like this morning when he asked me where his clean clothes were.

How am I supposed to know that? The last time I saw his clothes were when I put them in the washer two days ago. I even told him if they were still there then they needed to be rewashed.

Fortunately for him, he’d remembered to get them in the dryer and turn it on but had forgotten to retrieve them, and amazingly no one else had tried to do laundry since then.

If you’re wondering why I hadn’t put them in the dryer, the answer is I can’t.

When we went and bought our new machine I’d focused on getting a large capacity one to accommodate the loads our boys tend to have. The issue we’ve discovered with it is that I cannot reach anything in the bottom of the washer unless you want me to climb on my stool and dive head first into it.

So while I can sort laundry and put loads into the machine, I cannot switch the loads without help. Since the last load I’d put in was Jerry’s, I’d simply told him to transfer it to the dryer when the washing machine finished.

I’d even done multiple loads on Monday and Royce grumbled when he had to switch them for me. I reminded him that he did not want to see me head first in the machine trying to get them out myself.

And of course, I’m distracted again and end up just staring at the screen without any ideas on what to write about now.

Then disaster struck. Not only did the dogs need to be fed, and Jerry wasn’t home to do it, but my blood sugar tanked. I had to not only feed three dogs but find me something to eat and fast. Which, of course, left me with no time remaining to finish writing a post. Though the blood sugar issues may explain why I couldn’t think.

So here is my poor attempt at writing. Sorry, it’s shorter than usual.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.