What distracts you from writing this week?

Prompts and peanut butter. This is my answer to a very common question posed to writers:

“What distracts you from writing this week?”

I responded to such a query on Facebook not too long ago, but over time, expanded my answer and extrapolated my responses through the end of the current academic term.

Are writing prompts helpful? I’m not sure I’m the one to answer this question, because as you will see from my response, I tend to be scatter-brained.

It’s helpful for some writers to analyze how their time is spent, to meet a daily word count, or to finish a section of a piece by a certain date. Although I thrive by deadlines set for me by someone else, I’m terrible at assigning them for myself.

Which is possibly why I have about 50-and-still-counting unfinished products. This ordinary girl begins an average of a piece per week, and has done so for at least ten years. Now, I’m no math mathematician, but I believe that means I ought to have over 500 publishable things saved as documents on my computer.

The truth is very few of these documents are completed.

It’s super easy for me to say that my distractions come in the form of family, pets and work. The truth, however, is that many distractions are self-imposed. Why, then, can’t I ignore them?

My answer is the same one for why I can’t keep my paws out of the peanut butter. It’s a sticky situation. I stick myself in a chair to write, but then don’t know where to begin, and so find something tangible that I can complete instead— including crafting crazy thoughts that may or may not be related to writing.

Then, before I know it, my butt is no longer in my writing chair and my hand is in the peanut butter jar. I need peanut butter as much as I need a taxidermy raccoon whose hand is stuck in a peanut butter jar. Seriously. My husband offered to buy me one while visiting the Oddities and Curiosities Exposition in Tulsa, Oklahoma with our daughter.

What happened to sticking my butt in the writing chair? Read my semester’s worth of honest (but not very good) answers to “What distracts you from writing this week?” to find out.

Week 1:

1. Peanut butter. I can’t eat it anymore without feeling sick. My husband thinks the peanut butter killed the squirrel. He asked me if he should buy it as a reminder to me so that I also do not die from undigested peanut butter. I said no.
2. A really difficult Elf puzzle that my daughter gifted me for Christmas. Puzzles are my compulsion. I love it, I hate it, I can’t stop working on it until it’s done.
3. My inability to happily digest peanut butter and complete the Elf puzzle and a lumpish mass on my leg.
4. The bump on my leg is growing. The bump is sort of like something you might see on Dr. Pimple Popper, so I’m a little freaked out. It began as a bruise after I crashed my road bike last summer. Yes, I’m seeking a diagnosis and care, which has nothing to do with writing, and is taking time, but also provides an additional answer for number 2.

Week 2:

1. There is no more peanut butter in the house, so now I’m consumed with the thought of purchasing more, which tastes delicious, or avoiding the store altogether so I don’t purchase any because I know it upsets my stomach.
2. If I buy the peanut butter, I can use it to build squirrel feeders.
3. If I build squirrel feeders, I’ll have less time to write… and work. Or exercise.
4. Exercise keeps me from writing. I strive for an hour to an hour-and-a-half three to four days a week. Is that enough? Probably, if I refrain from eating peanut butter.

Week 3:

1. Grocery shopping. I can’t put it off anymore. My teenage son is near starving and has resorted to feeding himself raw sugar. We need more sugar. And apples. And perhaps broccoli. We don’t need more peanut butter. Isn’t that crazy?
2. The dogs need vet care. The one is old and makes a hacking sound. The other is overdue for shots.

Week 4:

1. Research on leaky valve disease, especially degenerative atrio-ventricular (mitral and tricuspid regurgitation), in dogs, as the vet told me my older dog suffers from this. His heart is too big on the right side. In this way only, he is like the Grinch.
2. That’s it. Dog research takes up a lot of time, even though everything I read has already been thoroughly explained to me by the extremely competent and communicative vet.

Week 5:

1. Parent-teacher conferences. Actually, the conferences take up very little time, since each overworked teacher can spare 15 minutes max with each parent. But the meetings themselves are not too distracting; all the thoughts and failed attempts at discovering what my kid does each day in school is distracting and time consuming and often results in absolutely no new information.
2. The bump on my leg is mine. I might as well name it. The doc said it’s likely to grow bigger over a number of years before my body reabsorbs it. I have a fatty lipoma. Tell me how that is not distracting.

Week 6:

1. Midterms for the college kids I teach. They’re a good, no great, group of students this term.
2. Election outcomes. Yikes.

Week 7:

1. Travel to my daughter’s art show. Okay, that sounds like a big deal, which it is, but really, it’s an art show that graduating seniors need to participate in to receive a college degree. Still, it was in Chicago and was very fun.
2. My sisters came to the art show to support my daughter. One of my sisters is a doctor. She agrees with my doctor. My fatty lipoma is dispersed, not worthy of removal, probably will grow bigger, and most likely will recede after a number of years.

Weeks 8 and 9:

1. Laundry and other recovery tasks from two-and-a-half days in Chicago. Seriously. And the laundry from our spring break trip to Port Aransas two weeks ago.

Week 10:

1. Figuring out a way to convince a few select students that the definition of a sentence is a string of words that includes a subject, verb, and object — in that order. Come on! We’re nearing the end of the term!
2. Figuring out how to convince my students to continue to produce quality work, or, as the case may be, to prove to me they can produce quality work.
3. Reminding myself that I still like this group of students very much, because it’s true, I do. I just wish a few could show me how to write a friggin’ sentence.

Week 11:

1. Who bought the peanut butter? Because now I have a stomachache again, and will for a few days, which will distract me as I walk around the house, asking “Who bought the peanut butter?”. My hubby and son will claim no guilt and instead reply “Why did you eat the peanut butter?” to which I will craft, but not utter, several responsible responses, such as “Because it is in our cupboard.”

Week 12:

1. Look at me! I’m writing! At the library! No peanut butter or laundry or red clay on my floors to distract me!
2. But is writing this list actually writing, as in writing something that’s worthwhile and clever? Should I be writing something else?
3. The person in a space near me is making weird sneezing/coughing/nose blowing sounds. This is the second time in one week. How can I end up next to the same no(i)sy person twice in one week? Any statisticians in the house?

Week 13:

1. Holy shit. This is the week my hubby takes a work trip for a number of days. It’s just the kid and me. Do 16-year-old boys still want to hunt plastic easter eggs hidden in not-quite-green lawns and poky shrubbery?
2. Holy smokes. Did I just cuss during holy week? Am I going to hell? Is it really hot in hell? I remember one time when I attended a meeting for new mothers that was housed at a church. The meeting people offered free daycare. So I stuck my kid in a room with about twelve other kids and a few adults. I went to the parent meeting, which was really a conservative Baptist meeting for women, and left a little early to pick up my four-year-old daughter. I asked her what she did. She said she learned about hell and how the devil lives below us. She asked me, as we stepped over a street grate that emitted warm air, if that’s where the devil lived. *Sigh*
3. Remembering and writing stories from a long time ago easily distract me.

Week 14:

1. The college kids took their final exams and turned in their final papers. My distraction for the next week or so will be grading their final papers. But wait, there’s more!
2. I attended a writer’s conference at the end of the week and am once again be inspired to keep my ass in my writing chair!

Week 15:

1. My daughter’s graduation week! I won’t be with her in Chicago, but my hubby will.
2. My son’s final exam week as a high school sophomore! I’ve spent my time making lists of how to keep myself occupied so that I don’t distract my son. I’ll complete my grading, then find other distractions…or maybe, I’ll seriously start writing.