Plotting, Like Productivity, Is a Lie I Tell Myself

    I swear I started my weekend with the best of intentions, as I always do. We all have that mantra “I’m going to get the laundry done, I’m going to get the kitchen cleaned, the office is going to get handled…” You know the shit we have been too busy during the week to keep up on, even though it's been a steady ass battle. 

Saturday, as much as I tried, I got nowhere with anything that wasn’t writing. That was mostly due to some last minute projects I had to button up for others during the week. And while I don’t regret a single moment of helping these authors, my writing assignment for Saturday’s show was still only half done. And while I’m known for finishing it up at the final hour, that puts me in a panic mode that is hard to come out of prior to the show.  

Then we come to Yesterday… Sunday… the day of rest and family time for most. Not in this house. Sunday seems to be the only day where everyone is home and still mentally checked out from the week before while setting up for the next. This is the day most promises get broken for the amount of work actually displayed. 

For example: Hubby starts around Wednesday giving me the song and dance of what all he’s going to get done the coming weekend. Either he sleeps the weekend, does half the damn chore and then “ohh shinies it”. Or sits and watches anime with the “I’ll get to it in a minute.” But I stupidly thought yesterday would be different. 

We have both been running on the under recommended amount of sleep for a bit. But when we got up Sunday we had a solid 5 hours. He was supposed to start laundry and I was starting on the office. Why the office? This is where I spend the vast majority of my time working from home and piloting the ship of this family.

Let’s face facts here. If the rest of the house has gone to hell you can bet your ass my office is ten times worse. Mainly due to it becoming the catch all the rest of my house has already become. I looked around my office to get a mental game plan before I started. The shelves, the desk, the piles of “I’ll get to that later” junk, and thought: Today is the day. Which is what I do with every room as I try my hardest to conquer. 

But it wasn’t until I knocked over a large pile of papers, that I had fucking had it. And while cursing in my head, I vowed there would be no more knocking things over with my elbow. No more stepping around the same damn stack of papers, piles of laundry, doom boxes like it’s a piece of abstract furniture. No more of treating my space like a dumping ground instead of the creative environment that it's supposed to be.

And you know what? I actually did it. I hit it hard, made a real dent that you can visually see, and got more than half the office done. For once, I was proud of myself. The Gremlin even helped like the little rockstar he is. Mostly just taking his toys back to his room instead of being in here but hey a win is a flipping win.

Which was short lived. How? Well, I went to ask my hubby a question about something, and he was nowhere to be found. Not at the table, not on the couch, not helping Gremlin pick up his room, and not in the back hall handling laundry. While I was waist deep in papers, he decided to go lay down and take a damn nap. He literally waited until I was knee-deep in chaos, snuck off to bed, and left me running the ship solo.

And when did he finally decide to join the land of the living? 11:30pm… I already had Gremlin fed, bathed, and sound asleep for school this morning with over half the office cleaned, while he had been passed out for nearly 10 to 11 hours. His only response once he saw what I had done…. Why didn’t I work on the living room and dining room (it’s one big room) instead of my office. And would I lay out Gremlin’s clothes before I went to bed.

Then this morning, he pulled the ultimate betrayal: turned off my alarms so I couldn’t get out of bed at 7:30am. Like my productivity depended on his sabotage. Spoiler alert: it worked. I didn’t crawl out of bed until almost noon.

Which brings me to the realization in my writing life that I’ve been avoiding: plotting is a lie.

I plot my days like I half ass plot my books. I know what needs to be done or where I’m headed in the story. It's meticulous in theory, an absolute trainwreck in practice. I’ll sketch out the perfect arc: clean the office, finish laundry, feed everyone, write 1,000 words. Sounds great on paper. But in reality? The characters (aka, my family) improvise their own damn lines, the subplots (like Hubby turning off alarms) come out of nowhere, and the neat story structure goes up in flames before the first act or even draft is over.

But here’s the thing: even when my plotting fails, the story still moves forward. The office is cleaner. Gremlin was taken care of. I may not have followed the script, but I still wrote a chapter in the chaos that is my life.

So maybe, plotting isn’t really the lie. I just keep forgetting it’s supposed to be a suggestion, not a guarantee. Because lets face facts… we like to think we control the characters, then they say hold my beer. Chaos. We are all Chaos. So… What’s the lie you keep telling yourself? I can’t wait to hear it. Drop it in the comments below.

Be Brave, Be Bold, But Always Stay Humble