It just occurred to me, after reading a thread asking why people write, that it might be interesting to hear why we don't write. Like, for instance, when: my wife nags me about the housework, the apartment super barges in to look at our plumbing, there are groceries to be bought, (before she died) when my cat kicked up a fuss about her litter box or food dish, when I haven't had enough sleep, when I have a nagging feeling in my gut that what I wrote the day before is going in the wrong direction, or when I've got five or more alerts on this forum.
Because of work, mostly. You know how when you have insomnia they tell you not to do activities other than sleeping and sex in your bed because it forms a link in your mind between the bed and those non-sleeping activities? They also tell you that if you can't sleep, get out of the bed. You don't want the frustration of insomnia being linked to the bed either. That's what happens to me often with writing. I work from home (an awesome situation about which I am not complaining should the Fates happen to be listening) so where I work and were I write is the same location. Usually, after a day of translating documents the last thing I want is to keep my face in the screen one second longer. :/
-> When it's nighttime, and I know that by writing I'm waving sleep bye-ye. -> When I'm in my volunteer job. -> When the story is stuck for whatever reason and I have to detective it out. -> The lure of the Internet. -> When I'm engrossed in a video game. Sorry, but...Fallout 4!!
For me, it's mostly because I get stuck. I've taken a major break since completing my first draft. That was due to the holidays and just needing some time off. But when I started looking at my story again, I realized how many plot and consistency errors there were. And I just can't bring myself to write anything until I fix them. So I've been thinking about these problems, pretty much every day, trying to figure out a solution. I finally have, so now I can start the second outline and the second draft.
If I stop to think about actually getting published, wondering if I am good or bad enough a writer that there is even the smidgen of seeing what I have worked hard on to be made into a book. Youtube is a big distraction for me.
When I don't write its because: 1. I have a family that I love to spend time with 2. I have work/other stuff to get done during the day 3. I have other interests besides writing 4. To take a break from writing to allow myself to be lazy and nonconstructive with my time
1. Facebook 2. Forum 3. Reading random articles 4. Spending time with my husband 5. Looking after my baby 6. Sleeping, because I no longer sleep through the night! 7. Still stuck on my novel's plan and too lazy/sleepy to think on it much
Bad moods & getting stuck are probably the worst. Right now in my WIP I had made a turning point by starting Part 2, the half way mark, and wrote about 6 pages but ... I didn't like the scene and kept stressing over it. I'm one of those writers that if I feel like I've just turned into what I feel will be a dead end I have to go back to the turning point and start again. Last night I finally fixed it but it was hard to even want to approach it because my mind starts playing tricks with me. How many dead ends have I fixed properly? How many did I miss?
Damn inconfidence. When I go on walks. My damn cats. When someone barges into the house without prior warning, causing some stress. Did I mention stress? When I just plain don't feel like it. Apathy gets bad. When I get headaches and pain in my left eye. When I get distracted by hunger but am too lazy to get up and start cooking immediately. Both understandable and arbitrary reasons.
Oooh I love lists! Especially ones where I get to whine. *ahem* Reasons Excuses why I don't write: God damn World of Warcraft. Raiding. I've recently been accepted into a team that's performing at the top 6% of all guilds in the game, and that's fuckin' exciting, okay? Legion (new expansion) HYPE. O.O Have to keep up with the spoilers! I have alts to level, jeeze. And achievements to catch up on! And mounts to farm!! I recently acquired the rarest obtainable mount in the game, so uh. *rides it everywhere, bragging constantly* Spoiler: Look how beautiful! I am lazy. Don't feel like I can produce anything worthwhile. The story's there, but the words aren't. Motivation? Just not feeling the spark right now. :/
Realization that I don't really have the gift to write well Discovery of just how much work it is to write something more than a short story Not enough time to compensate for either of the above But on a positive note, this forum and my feeble attempts at writing have made me look at books in a different way, much more appreciation now.
An 20 month old who loves to climb on EVERYTHING and get into everything is a great distraction from writing, once he finally falls asleep for the night I am whipped and just want to zone out in front of the TV for a while.
I usually stop writing (not counting when I'm working or doing other unavoidable activities) when I'm bored of the scene I'm working on. It isn't really a boring scene, according to my beta readers and my own opinion; it's just boring to write--especially since I'm anxious to introduce the next character/big event already! I hate it when I get to a good stopping point (like someone just went to sleep for the night) during a scene that loses my creative interest because then I get a bad case of writer's block. Luckily, doing research on how to write and reading a book usually unblock me
Anxiety and insecurity when I get that "this is never going to be good enough so I should just quit" feel ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Which usually leads to distracting myself with yt or video games until I can chill. I'm very distractible in general, though; just last night I was working on editing but then I decided I had to research aquifers, and once I got back to editing it took me all of two pages before I got sidetracked with some worldbuilding stuff ("where do these barren desert-dwellers get their cloth from? the silk of giant horrible cave spiders of course!") and taking down notes on that + getting off on OTHER worldbuilding topics ate up like two hours, and then it was late and I needed to get to sleep. It was a profitable distraction, at least. A couple days ago I wasn't writing because I was yelling about superheroes on twitter. And, yeah, work - I work on my own schedule and my work is writing but it's not the writing I want to do so it doesn't count.
Because I keep filling up my schedule with stuff, and then I stress over having all of these things to do. Either writing or exercise is the only free time left. So, I can go ride the bike/weights+spin, for 3 hours or write for 3 hours. The problem here, is I took on training for semi-competitive cycling and improve so I'll go knock out 60 miles or stay home and write. Not enough time for both, that would be a whole day! I also took on a novel attempt that could easily split itself into 3 x 20k+ pieces. doing both is hard when I'm not viewing them as my enjoyable spare time but more work. I need to get used to it as the fun part of free time instead of trying to fit in game/internet/whatever time.
Only two barriers for me: * time (my job is 60+ hours/wk, I do all the household logistics like shopping, cleaning, cooking) * environmental noise (I can't write when there's neighbours arguing or using powertools like leafblowers, revving their motorcycles, or when my wife is practicing her singing)
I relate to this very strongly. And finding the point where I went off-track is hit-n-miss which just makes it a guessing game. (sigh)
