Distraction

I get distracted very easily.

Not to say that I'm scatterbrained or anything. I focus very hard, on everything I do, for extended periods of time, and even multi-task occasionally. 

Or, at least, I seem to focus very hard. But, more often than not, my head is not in what I am doing.

It happens so much when I write, and that's the frustrating thing. Smack-dab in the middle of a well-formed, well-thought out paragraph, my mind will wander.

Now you could never tell to read the paragraph. My paragraph stays on track. But my head isn't in it anymore - my heart isn't in it anymore.

Oh, how I wish I could totally immerse myself in my writing, without my mind wandering! But the list that I always tuck away on the back shelf of my brain starts getting longer and longer...I should be studying, I should be responding to emails, I should be cleaning my room, I should be cooking, I should be making Christmas presents, I should be practicing my audition song, I should be going over my dance steps, I should be editing my manuscript, I should be writing that paper...

And, of course, while I'm sitting there writing, my brain decides that it's the perfect time to start reading this list out loud to me.

I want my list to stop growing. I want my brain to shut up.

Yet of course it doesn't. It never does.

But anyway, back to getting distracted. I think, somehow, over the course of the last few posts, I have written a lot about the art of writing, about writing as a craft, a skill to be honed, a journey to be taken. And it's true - that's what it is. But, though I've been writing about that journey, I haven't been taking that journey myself.

It's time to crawl back to my laptop and pull out my dusty manuscript that I've tried to forget about. It's time to get this journey started. It's time to forget about that stupid list. It's time to immerse myself in writing.

Because that's what writers do. They write.