Just in case you haven’t come up with your own ways to avoid writing, take a lesson from my author, L. I’d swear she wants to be distracted. Here are just ten of the many questions I can blame for stealing her attention yesterday when she could have been working on the novel.
1. What do Nick Cave’s soundsuits look like? What do they sound like?
2. Does the novel-in-progress need a tagline?
3. If a person Googles “carrot soup”, which of the more than three million hits will lead to a workable recipe that calls for only ingredients currently available in the kitchen?
4. Is it possible to marry the words virtual and picaresque within a single tagline for the novel-in-progress?
5. Does the contractor exist who can replace the leaky, ill-sloped eavestroughing before winter arrives?
6. It’s the season of awards. How does a person decide which, if any, of all those books on the shortlists and longlists are essential reads?
7. Eavestroughing, that’s one thing, but what about soffits and fascia?
8. Have any new books recently arrived on Brenda’s desk, and if so, did she post photos of them? Because whatever Brenda’s reading, it’ll be worth a look.
9. Does the Saskatoon Public Library have a copy of Werner Herzog’s film Cave of Forgotten Dreams? Why not?
10. Author branding: necessary or not?
This last question is the one that makes me jump up and hit the roof of her skull. Author branding, really. Could the literary industries please pipe down about author branding, please? It isn’t enough for a novelist to create and control a narrative for her characters, now she’s supposed to create and control a narrative for herself as well?
Please go back to work.
Strangely this is something I seem to be an expert @ :-)
Um, so are you working now, Taurean?
I’m delighted! But tell L to please go back to work before readers boycott carrot soup and start sending me and Nick Cave hate mail for causing a hold-up! I too want to read that novel!
Thanks, Brenda, I’ll pass that along. Maybe L will listen to someone else. She doesn’t seem to listen to me very well.
And, please tell L that she is not the only one who gets distracted by Brenda Schmidt! ;-)
Oh yes, no doubt there are many of you. What would be the collective noun for people who are willingly and repeatedly distracted by Alone on a Boreal Stage?
Aloners.
I’m expert at this too, and lately have been doing a smashingly good job. Going to google Nick Cave’s sound suits right now…
Have fun, Kim! And if you want to extend the distraction, may I suggest making your own sound suit.
Oh, that WOULD be fun! Thinking about it already…