I'll be honest. I've spent quite a bit of my life just "biding my time."
That's exactly why it's taken me over two years of active writing to finally finish my first full-length novel. I've spent days sleeping till 10 (or later), eating, watching television, surfing Facebook, or just simply staring out the window under the impression that I am technically "writing." Now, don't get me wrong. I am not lazy. In fact, I'm perfectly capable of being a relatively, and sometimes even overly, active adult. When I set my mind to something, I will push myself to the brink of literal exhaustion just to get it done. Painting my living room before the new TV arrives? Check. Two-tones in the kitchen, dining room and office, complete with chair railing as an anniversary gift while my better half is on a business trip for 3 days? Check. That 2x4 bookshelf I kept saying I was going to build completed in a day, without so much as even a predetermined design? Check. I mean, come on. I'm an author, which automatically makes me a visionary (right?) and if I get an image in my head of how something is supposed to be then I will not stop until I'm done (to the expense of all those involved, I assure you). But most of the time, I don't really have those spurts of determination. Working from home full-time, without a supervisor hovering over you or a publisher breathing a dead-line down your neck (most of the time), takes an incredible amount of discipline. Not to mention that, as a curse of the trade, you are naturally disconnected from "the real world." It is not unusual at all, in fact, to spend days without leaving my own house or so much as gracing the outside world with my social-media presence. In fact, attempting to assimilate into "normal" humanity for any period of time whilst in the midst of writing a work of fiction can actually be detrimental to an author's cause. "Did I just make a trip to Walmart for milk in sweat pants and a t-shirt? Why yes, yes I did."
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