Distraction & Procrastination

While wasting time online a while back I came across someone's version of the 12 Commandments for Writers. Among the usual tropes about not being afraid to write a disaster of a first draft and edit edit edit was one that... crap, I forgot it again.

......

Oh right. Start one book and stay with that story until it's finished. Don't let your mind drift to other stories or worse, try to write two at once. I'm not the sort to post daily motivational memes or inspo quotes or listen to anyone's advice (unless it came from Anthony Bourdain MHRIP) but that one hit a small nerve because I'm guilty as hell of trying to write two or three or eight stories at once, to the detriment of them all.

I blame this on distractions, which I can find in the bottom of an empty pickle jar if that's what it takes to get out of work. When it comes to distraction anything is a worthy diversion and right now my top two addictions are Netflix and a carb tracker app, with a side order of cowboy fast draw which I need a LOT of practice work.

I was about 1/3rd of the way into a first draft of a sci-fi romance novel when I got the bright idea to watch Deadwood. The thinking was to get ideas for my outfit for the fast draw competitions (which I am nowhere near ready for), but by the third episode my brain changed gears. Sexy intergalactic aliens gave way to whores and degenerates, and the word "cocksucker" is firmly in my lexicon now. As a result I now have a new story in my head, one that says Pick Me! Pick Me! and it's doing a stellar job of drowning out the tale I'm currently invested in. I keep telling it to STFU and wait it's turn.

Perhaps I should have binged on Farside and Firefly instead.

A snippet from the fucking ROUGH draft of my as-yet-unnamed next book...please excuse all the she she she he she he he business.

***

Once they began their ascent she forgot about their shared pleasure and focused all her energies on the climb. Even with him assisting her, she found the steep trail difficult to navigate and before the morning was out her thighs were shaking uncontrollably. She tried to hide her weakness from him but when at last she stumbled he hoisted her upon his back and continued on. For the rest of the day she clung to his back like an infant, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck and her legs supported by the crooks of his powerful arms.

As he steadily followed the barely perceptible path up the mountain she marveled at the diverse plants and wildlife around them. Most of her life had been spent deep underground on a wasteland planet cursed by seven suns. Nothing lived on top, and other than the Terran workers and their Vashti masters nothing lived down below either. The combination of colors and smells and textures left her giddy, drunk on sensory overload. The ever changing amethyst and azure of the skies overhead, the rich emerald and pale golds of the grasslands, and now on the mountains the colors changed to a riot of vermilion and sapphire and topaz.

Everything was wondrous and new, even the scratchy bark of the trees that occasionally scraped them in passing. Underpinning it all was his rippling flesh beneath her fingers and between her thighs, and the unmistakable scent that she would forever recognize as his own. He was heat and grass, salt and sand, everything she had experienced as she lay stretched and wasted upon him by the rocks in the clearing. If she lived to be a hundred cycles she would still recall the way his essence seemed rooted in the elements around him.

***

Back to work.