The Writing Life

I am trying to finish the first draft of a children's book that I started last October. It is frickin' hard. Everytime I sit down to write, I have to resist the urge NOT to write. I have a series of well honed avoidance procedures to avoid the laying of font onto the blank page. My writing process goes something like this:

• Drink coffee at a cafe. Surf social media.
• Remonstrate self and get off social media.
• Write a few sentences. 
• Feel disillusioned about the crapness of the sentences just written.
• Suddenly remember something urgent that needs doing. Such as Googling a random fact or Whatsapping a friend to say Hi.
• Look at the time. Only an hour left before writing time is up.
• Read through the last page that was written. Write a few more sentences.
• Sigh. Look out window. Get more coffee.
• Sit down. Get up. Go to the toilet.
• Sit down. Feel a sense of urgency.
• Call the Husband who is really busy at work. Moan about nothing. Look at self from above and think self needs a slap.
• Write a paragraph.
• Review total word count of the 'day's work'. 
• Word count is 246 words.
• Shit. Self imposed writing rule is 1000 words per session. Minimum.
• Write nonsense for 10 minutes. No clue what I am writing about anymore.
• Look at clock. 25 minutes left.
• Force myself to write up to 900 words, knowing at least 800 of these words will be cut in a future edit.
• Eavesdrop on the guy sitting next to me in Starbucks.
• Decide to write a random blog entry on writing.
• Write the blog entry in 5 minutes.
• Check phone. Clear emails and messages.
• 10 minutes left.
• Write. Time's up.
• 1251 words further in to a story that is a complete mess.

Welcome to first draft hell.

Amen to that