Procrastabaking

Procrastabaking | pro-KRAST-a-bak-ing |
(v) : To delay or postpone doing what one knows they should do by baking and/or cooking.

I wish I was clever enough to have coined that term, but alas, I was not. I stole it and I'm adopting it.
Why, you ask, would I resort to thievery of someone else's intellectual property? It's simple. I like it and it fits.

It is, in fact, what I seem to do on Sundays when I know I could be writing. I may need to lower my expectation of writing on Sundays. The problem is, it seems like such a perfect day for it. The only chore I'm likely doing is laundry, which requires little or no attention from me. Most fun stuff happens on Saturday if it happens at all. I don't have work. It should be perfect.

Except for the small fact that lately I've felt like not doing ANYTHING on Sundays. And maybe I should listen to that and not fret so much. After all, I am a Mom and a Wife, I work a job that requires my brain to be alert and smart all day, I try to exercise and take care of myself and my family. Maybe it's not the worst thing in the world if I don't write on Sundays. Or at least not get bummed when I'm not and I just want to lay around and surf the internet or watch cheesy TV.

But then there's this little thing: this desire to write, to complete a novel. It's not something someone else can do for me. I can't ask someone to finish this chapter or this scene, like I can ask someone to switch over the laundry for me. It's something that I have to do. My fingers. My keyboard. My deal. I'm not going to lie. I'm tired.

Hense today's Procrastabaking. I frittered away the entire morning and at some point past noon I decided I simply wasn't going to write. I just didn't have it in me. What I wanted to do was cook. I love a good dinner on Sunday evenings. Last Sunday's Procrastabaking resulted in Pasticcio for dinner and for desert a Ginger cake topped with Raspberry glaze and fresh whipped cream. Today, I felt like stew and bread. So, I spent the next three to four hours chopping, braising beef, seasoning broth. While that sat on the stove, simmering and getting more delicious by the minute, my son and I made a couple loaves of bread together. And it was immensely satisfying. Dinner was good. And eaten and cleaned up by 6:30.

Time to write.

And I did. A little more than a 1,000 words. Where has my 2-3,000 word days gone? I swear it's all I can do to eek out a good 600 words. I feel like I've lost my muse - if ever in fact I had one. Or my mojo. And I feel like a spoiled brat. I did, in fact, write over 1,000 words today. I moved the story a little further. Threw a small monkey in the wrench of my character's progress - which is good. I think I just still have this underlying fear that I'm writing crap. I'm going to need to figure out what I need to do to get inspired again. Is this normal?

I wish I had an author's ear to bend. I would totally buy him or her a cup of coffee - hell, I would make them a Thanksgiving dinner - and ask them if I'm delusional or if I have something. Or maybe I would ask them if it really even matters anyway. Maybe, by their very nature, writers are in fact delusional. Maybe you have to be to even try to write so many words that make up an idea, a scene, people's lives - or their deaths, as luck may have it.

I don't know. I guess I can't figure it out tonight. Which means I'll just try again tomorrow. And keep trying until I'm done.

I've got to say though, that was a good dinner!

Total Word Count: 72,144
(Divided by the average 350 words per paperback page) 206 pages