Wednesday 18 November 2015

Bea-ing Lackduster

lackduster (adj.) the state of choosing to ignore domestic work in favour of creative activity

Don’t worry if you’ve not heard of it before. It’s a new word. I made it up. You’ll find it in the Mslexicon, a dictionary of new words compiled by Mslexia and printed in this month’s littlems, the regular email they send to subscribers.
To dust or not to dust...
Writing is a good excuse not to do any housework. But there are times when writing is such a struggle I have resorted to housework as an excuse not to write. Or shopping. Or sewing. Or gardening.
But, and this is the magic of creativity, inspiration can occur when I am distracted by the mundane activities of life. One of my favourite stories was one that occurred to me while I was ironing. I called it “Dashing Away” and it was published in The Weekly News.
What virtuous distractions do you use as an excuse to avoid the tyranny of the empty page?

4 comments:

  1. I call it thinking time, which is writing in your head isn't it? So I get all the chores out of the way while I'm in thinking mode and then hey presto, I'm ready to go! It doesn't always work out like that of course as there is always that little extra job that needs doing. Procrastination is my favourite word.

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    1. Thinking time sounds a better description than housework, Maggie.

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  2. Procrastination is fair enough - but dusting and ironing sound rather drastic!

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