Don't Let the Pigeon Procrastinate

(I'm supposed to be working.)

ETA: The line at the end that turned out too tiny to read: "Thanks to my editor (I think) and Mo Willems for making this movie possible."

OTMA, round 2

OTMA has returned. Again.

By and large, the proposed cuts are not as scary as I was braced for. Madame Editor is a sharp line editor. However, there is the matter of her suggestion to do away with ALL THESE PAGES:


Two great big handfuls, both from chapters narrated by Maria. The first one had me bent over the kitchen counter making horrified exclamations: Oh. Oh, you vile woman! No! And then I caught myself smiling as I fussed, because....because...I think she might be right.

But I am not touching this big pile of paper again until Monday.

BFF recap: good news/bad news

This month I have:

• not blogged once (aside from this post)
• turned off Google Alerts
• cut down Goodreads email updates by at least 50%
• stopped posting star-ratings to the books I've read on Goodreads
• pared down blogs I follow by 30%
• abandoned daily visits to two of my three favorite message boards
• (mostly) stopped reading Facebook updates of people who aren't personal friends or family
• stopped checking my Amazon ranks(!)
• ignored my blog traffic stats
• decreed that widget-peeks and web browsing sessions may commence only between the hour and the quarter (how long those sessions last is another matter, however)

Discoveries:

• Networking and blogging and all the rest aren't so much about keeping in touch as about keeping up. And up, and up, and UP. Blargh.
• Left to my own devices, it's positively creepy how much time I will spend loitering online, waiting for a bit of virtual interaction to pounce on. As opposed to, say, seeking out a live human to speak with in person.
• It's also disconcerting to see how odd it initially felt to be done with my morning web-binge in half the time. I found myself staring at the screen thinking, Really? Already? as if I were an alcoholic dumbfounded by an empty glass.
• I can't honestly say that cutting down on all this malarkey has upped my productivity. My constitutional resistance to drafting is still a great big hurdle. However, I am far less inclined to do my procrastinating online, which in turn makes me feel far less...turdy. The internet is a strange place, capable of making me feel simultaneously harried and slovenly.
• Posting only privacy-filtered, literature-relevant slices of yourself online paints a very two-dimensional impression of a person. It's also oddly tiring.

The good news:

Cutting back was much easier than I expected. And you know what? I LIKE IT BETTER THIS WAY.

The bad news:

I wish there was a way to say this gently, but...I did not miss blogging. Not one little bit.

Confession: I've been suspicious of blog-burnout since well before Christmas, and Blog-Free February provided the definitive diagnosis. The space that has opened up in my brain and my schedule this past month is too big to let go -- especially while I'm doing daily battle with a first draft. (Or trying to.) I always give precedence to the more pressing deadline, and that is nearly always blogging.

From now on, fiction comes first -- count on me only as a Very Occasional Blogger.