This fateful day

Hi, did you miss me?

No need to answer, just allow me to state the obvious viz. I haven't been blogging a lot lately. Not here and not anywhere else. I'm just forcing myself to write most days. Every New Year's Eve for the last five years I've resolved to pay more attention to my blog (not this one, the music one, which just goes to show, I guess...), and every year I have failed, each time more spectacularly than the last.

End result: self-culpabilisation for slacking off and not being 'productive' enough.

So what am I doing here, eh?

Check this out - I just published a new post on my more public facing music blog - the penultimate post in a 6-part series that was due to be completed in by end 2017, and which I can only hope finally sees completion 2 years after the original deadline.

So as I encounter this sudden burst in 'productivity' I ask myself - why doesn't this happen more often?

And the first of the reasons given below led to all the rest:

1. Time to think: I'm on holiday in the middle of nowhere in South-West France; I'm home alone and since I'm in a village there is literally nowhere for me to go. Even the few residents who are here are off to the annual festival in the nearby town of Dax. Boyf is out visiting a friend leaving me alone to figure out new and innovative ways to entertain myself... kind of what I used to have to do through most of my adolescence aka my most prolific 'writing' phase. I just had/have nothing else to do, and with no distractions - human or urban - my poor brain finally has the time to figure itself out.

2. Alternative Outlets: Major change since the last time I wrote on here is sudden independence, moving to middle of the city, and developing a new, dynamic and active social circle. Also guess what else cropped up between the time that I started blogging and now? Social media and instant messengers. If I'm already recounting my entire life to my mum on whatsapp, strangers on twitter, documenting plant-parenting on instagram, and have a group of friends + family + partner with whom I am regularly spilling everything that's on my mind, what's the blog for?

3. Non-creative writing: So hey, things change over time, who knew? Anyway, from being a lowly noob at mt first job, I'm now working a higher position with a bigger organisation that takes up more of my time - and space, since I have to keep moving around for it. Add to this that about 50% of my communication in this job involves reading lengthy documents and drafting professional essays aka emails in my THIRD language, is it any wonder I get home every evening with no urge whatsoever to write even one more word? I work in communication, my entire day is spent communicating and at the end of it I don't even feel like talking to myself.

4. Vacations where you have to do things: I say it over and over again - for me a REAL vacation is one where I don't have to DO anything. One of the many reasons I prefer mountain to beach is the freedom the mountains offer you to just sit in a cabin, marvel at the Himalayas, possibly sip a coffee/tea/beer and just contemplate existence (and such contemplation is what gives birth to creativity). Now this sounds great in theory, and my dream is one of those stylish minimalist cabins nestled within some lightly snowy peaks, BUT let's be honest. I have never, till date, had a vacation where I did nothing. And even if I did try to do nothing, I just need to look at vacation partner(s) staring longingly out of the windo, feel a bit of sympathetic FOMO and essentially lose myself in guilt instead of aforementioned existence contemplation. This 0.5 day might be the first where I could guiltlessly do nothing. Before feeling guilty about doing nothing and then putting out two blog posts in a day. 

5. Social life: Harking back to point #1 - what is up with that? Why do my friends (I love them dearly but still) want to meet me all the time? Don't get me wrong I want to meet them too and I love seeing them, but I did not realise I had amassed so many along the way... and they still keep coming. Then, to make my life more exciting, they move to places that are nearby which gives me no excuse to ignore them - though I do it anyway. Work colleagues get more lucky because they already have me captive so all they have to do is play to my weaknesses and be all 'hey lets get a drink' and I'm sold. It shames me to admit this, but on several occasions I have willingly invited them over to my flat and been a gracious and welcoming hostess. I can't believe it either. All this means that there is no time to think nor to write.

6. Broken laptop and the QWERTY vs AZERTY conflict: My personal laptop has been in a semi-functional state for the last year and a half. 90% of the time that inspiration strikes, my laptop decides to take a few hours to launch, by which time I'm so occupied  by trying to get it to startup any thoughts of creative writing are long gone, and I just end up being IT support for myself. Even if everything goes well, my beloved job has now conditioned me so I am able to operate efficiently on an AZERTY keyboard only (which is tragic because AZERTY is a ridiculous keyboard layout - you have to press the SHIFT key to type numbers?). Personal leptop is a sensible QWERTY which I am now unable to use through no fault of it. And forgive me if I don't feel like opening up my work laptop during non-work hours if I can help it.

6. Sheer laziness + my crippling video game addiction: Let's be fair - even if left to my own devices I am much more likely to go tumbling down the reddit/instagram rabbit hole which has now grown even bigger thanks to my new addiction to SimCity. In my defence, my SimCity addiction replaced my sims mobile addiction so I am wasting the same amount of time on mobile video games. Also, big ups for EA for making these games so time-based which means I should only be able to play them for ten minutes at a stretch. Of course, I will always find a way to turn those ten minutes into one hour, but at least that's not the game's fault (though it makes me check the market every 30 seconds for new items... so maybe the game IS to blame and I am merely a hapless victim).

I guess the one thing that I can take away from this post that I've put together in half an hour without even stopping to take a sip of the rosé that's next to me (!!! such dedication !!!) is: I've still got it! While factors beyond and within my control are preventing me from reaching my full creative potential, my social potential seems to be under control.