Before I Can Write

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about my writing process, much more conscious of all the machinations, neuroticisms, and unexpected delights that seem to be emerging.

And so tonight, I actually turned off a movie (gasp) to go write because an idea had grabbed me. Normally, I try to stop what I'm doing if I'm grabbed by an inspiration and simply write a bunch of notes and return to my previous activity. And tonight that happened, sort of. While heating up my leftover spicy Indian food, I finally came upon a subject for my next essay to workshop in class. I stopped my thought of eating right away, sat at my computer, and hammered out 500 words fairly quickly. Figuring I would return to the essay tomorrow, I sat down with my dinner and Idiocracy, which I was loving, except for the fact that I realized I had taped it off of Comedy Central and the fucking curses were blipped out, along with commercials.

So, with an easy excuse, I turned off the movie, but really it was because the ideas for the essay kept intruding over my movie thoughts, and I wanted to follow the urge, thankful to have writing calling me rather than me calling writing.

And I've been sitting at my computer for about 20 minutes now, and have yet to start on the essay, because I got distracted and then started to think about all the things I had to do before I can write.

• Decide on writing music for tonight. For the start, Abigail Washburn's latest City of Refuge.
• Check my email at work (yup, terrible addiction)
• Check my email at gmail (combination of school and personal)
• Check my email comcast (personal)
• Look up the Wii part I needed to replace because tonight I discovered that the sensor bar wire had been chewed through (thanks to Dowan), and I could not use the Wii (and I probably would have been watching a different movie tonight had the Wii worked, since my plan was to find something on Netflix). And if I had found a different movie without commercial and censored distraction, the story might end here.
• Go to Amazon to see how much the Wii part cost. Since it only cost $4+, I needed to then surf for books so that I could spend $25 and get free shipping. Each book I found made me think that I should simply get that book out of the library.
• So then I had to go to the DPL site, see if they had the book, but before I could check it out online, I had to use the new login system for the first time since their recent upgrade, inputting a password, and then placing a hold.
• And then it occurred to me that I didn't need to order the Wii part through Amazon and spend more money just to get free shipping. Nope, I could go to Gamestop and pick it up there. So I went to the Gamestop website and searched for Wii Sensor Bars and found an even better solution: a wireless sensor bar, coming in at $19+. Not only was I saving money, but without the wires, it meant that Dowan could not chew through this one.
• I still, though, wasn't finished with my wandering since I had not checked Facebook recently. I scrolled through a bunch of updates, fortunately starting to feel compelled to write, since I didn't even bother to go play a Scrabble hand in one of the five games I currently have going. While lingering in Facebook, I started to think about how many different things I seem to need to do online before I can write
• Such as my final thing, which is writing a blog about the necessary preparation before I can actually settle down and write.

And I am now ready to return to my original writing urge, the essay for class, as long as I haven't used up all my energy here.