Stop Telling Me to Write!!!

Setting an alarm to make myself write at the same time every night was the worst decision ever.

My boyfriend did it first. (When in doubt, blame the boyfriend, right?) He wanted to focus on writing more. He wanted to discipline himself, to write even when he didn't feel like it, even when he didn't have any ideas he was excited about. So he set an 8:00 pm alarm and enlisted my help. "Make sure I don't ignore it." "Tell me to shut up and go write." So I did, and for a few days, he would write at 8:00. Maybe not for very long, but he would write.

So when I decided I wanted to write more, I set my own alarm. I even set it for 8:00, thinking that if our alarms went off at the same time we might help each other be disciplined. "You go write in there, I'll write in here. Look at us, we're writing!!"

This is a simulation of the alarm, obviously,
as it's not at 8:00 pm.
I even made it look mean and uninviting. Terrible.
And yes, my cell phone screen is my half-
brother in his Halloween costume carrying 2
buckets of candy. What?

This was the worst idea ever, for two main reasons. One, by the time I decided to set my writing alarm, I'm pretty sure my boyfriend had already started ignoring his, or had even turned it off all together. And two, alarms are TERRIBLE!!!!

Seriously. I hate regular alarm sounds so much that when I hear them on TV, in commercials or movies, I cringe and tense up and wait impatiently for it to pass, screaming in my head Turn it off! Turn it off! I use musical tones or make my own ringtones from songs in my iTunes library for my alarms, but I have to change them out every couple of months because I inevitably come to hate the songs that wake me up. I also set my morning alarm thirty minutes early, with a second alarm set fifteen minutes early, specifically so that I can press snooze for 30 minutes. Because alarms don't inspire me to take immediate action.

Why, then, did I think an alarm was the way to for writing? I don't know. I guess it felt productive, and made me feel like I was taking steps toward becoming a better writer. Or at least a more prolific writer. But all it did was make me dread 8:00 each night, and the feeling that I had to write or I'm failing. Plus I'm starting to hate David Bowie's "Sound and Vision," thanks to my brilliant idea that a song with the word vision in it might somehow be inspirational.

So, here's to the failed experiment of the writing alarm. It was an honest mistake, but I really should've known better. 8 at night or 10 in the morning, I'll write when I'm good and ready.

Though the alarm did inspire me to write this post and another one on my old blog....hmmmm.....