Paper Hangover

Friday Fives: What Are Five Excuses You're Ready to Give Up?

Yet another amazing topic to discuss today, from the great writerly peeps over at Paper Hangover:

What are FIVE excuses you have to be ready to give up in order to be a better writer?

This one was a tough one for me - hence my long-winded answers below. But sometimes it takes writing things out, to attack them face on. Grip them by the horns and slam them to the ground. And when you read my #5, you'll know why I took on this challenge of facing some of my excuses.

1. Maybe I'll never be good enough. Yikes, nothing like a biggun, right off the bat, right? But here's the deal: while I know this mostly isn't true, otherwise I wouldn't have spent 30+ years writing, there are those days when I absolutely, unequivocally, feel this way. What writer doesn't struggle with this internal conflict (aside from many others)? But like many things I do in life, I take on writing as a challenge. The more I work at it, the better it will become. But I have to work hard. Because the craft of writing only gets better as you go. And the amount of things I'm still learning, never ceases to amaze me. So while I'll have "those days" - I know I've had more that told me I will be good enough. Which means in the end, I like my odds.

Friday Fives: Five Biggest Distractions On The Internet

Oh, this one is a fabulous topic for me, indeed!
When it comes to internet distractions, I'm worse than Dug the Dog in the movie, UP! when he sees the Squirrel!
One of my absolute favorite scenes:
Dug: Hi there. 
Carl Fredricksen, Russell: [surprised exclamations] 
Carl Fredricksen: Did that dog just say "Hi there"? 
Dug: Oh yes. 
Carl Fredricksen: Whaa! 
Dug: My name is Dug. I have just met you, and I love you. 
[he jumps up on Carl] 
Carl Fredricksen: Wha... 
Dug: My master made me this collar. He is a good and smart master and he made me this collar so that I may speak. Squirrel! 
[looks to distance for a few seconds]
And in case you need to see it live, here's the clip on YouTube:

As fellow professional procrastinators writers, we want to know what are FIVE of your most distracting (procrastination-worthy) things (habits, websites, etc.) on the internet?

1. Email: This rings especially true, when I'm in the query process. There simply aren't enough minutes in an hour, where I can refresh my in-box to see if I've received some type of response to my recent queries. Only to step away for a second, then run back to my keyboard with my hair on fire, and refresh again. No OCD here at all. (I hit refresh 14,369 times since I started typing this blog - amazing, huh?).