Complete and Total Distractions

As a writer, my job is to sit still and dump out words onto the page to make a story you can read. My hope is always to give you the best ride I can with great characters and rich development of plot and said characters. This requires many, many, m a n y hours of solitude. As an introvert, I'm not complaining, but it is important to leave home every now and then and see the world around me.


Well, along comes "spring break" for kiddo. Suddenly there's this beautiful child in the house with me and she's not so keen on me sitting in the same chair all day. So, I went outside. We explored the NC Zoo (amazing) and she started taking a gymnastics class that she loves. Yes, I can still do a cartwheel and a round-off, thank you very much.


I also took this time to clean the entire house minimalist style and we donated boxes and boxes of items to our local Goodwill. It also got me thinking that I'd really like to replace our current sofa and loveseat since they don't match and are really old. I mean, one of them is, I swear, thirty years old. I made forts from those cushions when I was a kid. No lie. That means I started to shop online and out and about in town. There's a lot to consider when buying something like this and I'm terribly frugal, so this will not be a quick decision and I expect to shop for months to come.


But what does all of this activity mean? I've not gotten as much writing done as I planned. I aim to pull down 500 words every day no matter if I worked that day at my job or I was off. 1000 words is ideal; 500 is my minimum. It just didn't happen this week. I got totally distracted from my personal goals, and I became disappointed in myself for that.


In life we're often harder on ourselves than anyone else. It just happens. We make choices for one thing knowing full well we're turning our back on the other. However, as much as I dissed on myself for not getting my full writing goals met, I did get time to think, to ponder my characters. I have to say, sometimes that time away from the keyboard, when no words get out, can be some of the most productive story time ever.


So, while I don't have my new couch (yet), and while I still have closets full of things I don't need, and now I'm set to take kiddo to gymnastics class weekly, I did gain a lot in terms of plot which makes me happy. I guess the point is that sometimes our distractions can give us something in return we didn't expect. There's a beauty to losing yourself in another task and then returning to your "regularly scheduled program" renewed.