Monday, February 14, 2022

Me and My Screen

 Q: Sitting around all day isn’t good for us – we all know that. Sitting around all day (writing) is what we authors are expected to do. How do you find a healthy balance so that your body is able to sustain the work your mind needs to undertake? And what are you up to in 2022 that this will help you achieve?

-from Susan

 

Step one: Understand that sitting in front of a computer all day isn’t good for me.

 



Step two: Implement a plan to run downstairs every couple of hours and eat something. Food helps me sustain the work my mind needs to undertake, right?

 



Step three: Stop kidding myself. 

 



Step four: Jump up and put in a load of laundry. Feed cats. Go out to the deck with cats. Think about how healthy a walk would be if I didn’t have 400 words to write to meet today’s goal.

 



Step five: Take only one, small cookie upstairs and sit in front of computer.

 


I sincerely want 2022 to be better than 2021. I registered for Left Coast Crime, and I’ll do a lot of walking in the hotel. The weather’s good, so I’ll make a bet with myself that I will walk every other day. I won’t bet the house.

 

Honestly, I love walking in my ‘hood, I love gardening, I love my cats. I’m not as screen-obsessed as my grandkids. But I am too easily transfixed by bright screens promising stimulation, entertainment, escape. Maybe I need an AA type program? Is there one?

 

 

2 comments:

Josh Stallings said...

Instead of a five am writers group like on Twitter we need a ten am walking group. We can tweet what we saw and how many words we didn’t type while seeing the world. Or I remember writers I knew who typed while on a tread mill, I’m afraid I lack the coordination for that, I’d falloff and wind up in cast. But it’s a thought. A bubble wrap suit and a treadmill desk. Yeah that’s it.

Susan C Shea said...

Josh, desperate times call for desperate measures!