Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Excuse me?

I recently bought a laptop with some of our tax refund money. I didn't have a clue it would take so long to transfer all my files over from the old desktop to the laptop. I've got one massive transfer left to make, and then I'll be all done with all the files except my Outlook contacts, and I don't have any way to transfer those that I know of.

This all brings up a valid point. At what point do we stop all the messing around with things that are not writing, that shut down our Muse? Certainly, new computers are worthwhile and take our attention and time, but they should not take preeminence before our Muse.

What have I learned? That my own actions can cause my Muse to be shut away, but not totally silent. That my priority during the day is not transferring files, rather, writing first, then going with the other things the day brings.

Case in point. Today, I am only now getting around to writing my post, when it should have been one of the first things I've done instead of the last. I have yet to get to my new book. Of course, there is research being done for my new book, but I can still write on other projects that are going on. I just haven't.

No more excuses! No more passing the buck. No more playing with the new computer because it's so much fun...before my writing that is. Now is the time for butt-in-chair, fondly nicknamed BIC. How has your BIC been today, this week?

8 comments:

Carla G said...

You make good points. I too have a lot of excuses for not writing. You have inspired me to shake my Muse awake and get started. Thanks for the KIB (kick in the butt).

Carla

BTW - search your hard drive for your .pst file - this is your Outlook file that has all your contact (and email) information. You should be able to transfer all your contacts (and old email) more easily than retyping all of them.

Hope that helps

Vivian Zabel said...

I'm always BIC, but most of the time I'm working on other people's work.

Morgan Mandel said...

I'm going to do some BIC on Wednesday. In a few weeks I'll have to digress and work on my income tax stuff for the accountant. All those writing expenses I threw into the keeper now need to come out and get organized. Yuck, but it'll be worth it in the long run.

Morgan Mandel
http://morganmandel.blogspot.com

Jan Verhoeff said...

Between the BIC and the KIB I'm about to finish my TP. Then my muse can take over and drown me in Fiction for all of about six hours before my first tax client arrives in the morning. BIC means something different here!

Blessings,

Bob Sanchez said...

Katie,
I sure can relate to your complaint. My muse has been suffering from long neglect, even though most of my waking hours are taken up with writing-related activities. Said activities, however, are not actual writing.

Bob Sanchez
http://bobsanchez1.blogspot.com

Mayra Calvani said...

I can sympathize, Katie. I'm the best procrastinator there is and will always keep inventing stuff to keep myself from writing! Me and writing, we have a love-hate relationship. Can't live with it, can't live without it.
I have to painstakingly do my best to WRITE before I do anything else--emailing, promotion, reviewing, etc.
Only if I do that am I truly happy.

Kim Smith said...

I am slacking majorly. I am on the book tour and it takes a lot of time to keep the balls all in the air. I hope to get back to BIC soon.

Margaret Fieland said...

Since I write part-time, I have *lots* of excuses for not writing. I must say that I've been doing better lately since I've cut down on my wheel-spinning TV watching and making daily lists of things I need to accomplish.