Tag: Procrastination

Writing Day!

Nikki Nelson-Hicks

It’s been awhile since I’ve had a free day so I decided to devote this Saturday to working on my story, Politics of Children.

Ok……BUT FIRST!

  • COFFEE
  • Social Media fix. Gotta check those emails and see what’s trending.
  • Sit on the porch, enjoy the morning. Listen to the crows.
  • Shower. Body maintenance is important.
  • Breakfast – toast with peanut butter, some flax seed and slices of apple.
  • MORE COFFEE!
  • Go to the office.
  • UGH! What is that smell?
  • Clean the litterbox
  • Sweep and swiffer the floor around the litter box
  • Dispose of nasty Pee Pad and put down a fresh one.
  • Oh wait….the cat’s water fountain. I need to clean that.
  • Dump out water because no one in this house understands that you can’t just keep filling the fountain with water, goddammit, it has to be cleaned!
  • Take the fountain apart and use the tiny scrubbing brush that came with the cleaning kit to get all the ICK out of every thing. Seriously. It’s disgusting. Fur, mold and I don’t know what the hell else is growing inside this thing. I’m destroying an ecosystem. I am the destroyer of worlds.
  • Assemble the fountain and return it to its corner of my bedroom.
  • Fill with water while cats eye me suspiciously. I wonder if perhaps they were in league with the filmy mold. Did I just cause an interdimensonal incident?
  • OK! Back to the office. Time to get some work done.
  • Wait….where the fuck is my bottom taskbar on the screen?
  • Google the problem.
  • Find 600+ solutions.
  • Try a few. Makes it worse.
  • Suddenly task bar comes back.
  • WTF
  • Pull up WIP
  • Damn…now I need to pee.
  • Urinate. Wash hands. HYGIENE IS IMPORTANT.
  • Wait…I still need to eat.
  • Eat breakfast
  • Glance over WIP while crunching on apple slices
  • Delete sentences.
  • Wait….need music.
  • Select a playlist.
  • Phone Pings.
  • Check Phone.
  • FUCK! NO NO NO! PUT IT AWAY!
  • Ok….get to work….
  • WAIT!
  • Let’s journal about this….get our head on straight.
  • And here we are….

*Tap* *Tap* Is this thing on???

Nikki Nelson-Hicks

I barged into my daughter’s room today and said, “Jesus! I can’t believe how much this month sucks!”

“What month?” she said. “It’s only been ten days.”

Which did nothing for my mood.

I don’t know what is it about April. Something about this time of the year always makes me a little…crazy.

I don’t know if it’s the tree spooge pollen getting up inside my brain meats. Or maybe it’s the changing of the season with all the rain and sun and rain and sun and rain and sun. But it’s the same thing. Every year around about this time I find myself getting a little…weird. Like, unfocused weird….I can’t think or stay on topic for more than a few minutes before my monkey brain has jumped to another branch.

Actual video of my Monkey Brain

Which means NOTHING GETS DONE!

I haven’t written a single word on my Crown of Feather project. I’ve been buying time by trying to find the perfect journal and the perfect pen and…oh, my yes! More and more research materials to help feather the nest.

But we all know that’s procrastinating bullshit.

And the script for my new podcast idea, They Done Her Wrong? I got about three pages into that and……yeah.

This little fucker

I’ve often said that writing is like jabbing yourself with a needle, over and over, each time the tip getting a little duller, as you try to find the right vein that will shoot you up and over into La-La Land where words burst out of your fingertips like bolts of golden lightning. It’s magic when that happens. The Story takes over and everything is fucking AWESOME.

But, until you find it, all you’ve got to show for yourself is an arm full of holes.

And a brain that is getting duller and duller with each passing day.

I’m not alone in this. Many of my creative friends have been experiencing this since the Great Shut Down of 2020. I, as usual, the eternal late bloomer, have just now arrived to the pity party.

But that’s ok! It’s all ok! I can do this. I’ve wrestled with Aprils before and I’ll bust through this one.

I’ll see y’all on the other side.