What I've Been Up To

What have I been up to this week? Well, it's not writing, I can tell you that much. This week I have not written or edited one word of the novel. Never you mind that I owe 10 pages for a manuscript evaluation by September 1st, or that I've had two critiques via blogs where I've received feedback that I could, you know, incorporate into said novel. I've done squat.

Oh, and by the way, I don't believe in writer's block, so that's not the problem. The problem is that I don't know what to do with the story so I've been avoiding any and all work on it. I've been employing simple avoidance techniques. No writer's block to be found.

And since I don't believe in whining either, and always try to look on the bright side of things, here is a list of things I have been doing this week instead of working on the novel. I offer this because if I stumbled on another writer's neurotic list of things she did when she was stuck on her book I might feel less alone and therefore slightly more hopeful.

So, this week I:

• Cleaned the lobby of my condo even though it is not, and has not, been my month to clean the condo lobby for quite some time.
  
• Saw Julie & Julia (fabulous!) on Wednesday afternoon. Proceeded to prepare for weepy confession to hubby over dinner that I went to see a movie in the middle of the day instead of working on my novel. Wonderful husband didn't mind, perhaps because I was busy plying him with lasagna and Chianti and/or he was grateful he didn't have to sit through that movie with me.
  
• Tried to think of other ideas for a new novel, since I keep hearing so many people say they know exactly what their story is going to be about before they even write a word. Needless to say, no luck there.
  
• Recorded and watched every episode of Gilmore Girls available to me on ABC Family.
  
• Cried a lot about being a lousy writer who will never, ever make it and wished I didn't want to be a writer so very badly so that I could actually consider the easier option of giving up.
  
• Vacuumed living room and the little sun room where I write read blogs.
  
• Stopped reading one book half way through (to protect the innocent, I won't say which) and started reading another (Queen of Babble Gets Hitched by Meg Cabot).
  
• Exercised almost every day, because if I didn't I would be even more crazy than I currently am. Plus, now that my body can process red meat again I've been eating every cheeseburger in sight.
  
• Tried not to think about partial I sent to agent last week.
  
• Also tried not to read too much into agent's blog post about how all the partials she has are pretty good.
  
• Washed and folded laundry, but did not put said laundry away.
  
• Enjoyed two fun social evening events (yay for birthday parties!) but was bummed when two additional social evening events were cancelled. I needed four fun social evening events this week!
  
• Gave myself a pedicure. Forgot about recent pedicure, and smudged six of ten toenails in less than five minutes.
  
• Re-read one of my existing short stories and thought about making it my next novel. Got scared/overwhelmed by thought of starting another novel. Closed Word document quickly to avoid potential panic attack.
  
• Wished I didn't blog so much last week so I would have more topics saved up to post this week instead of a terribly revealing list of novel avoidance activities.

Yeah, that was my week. Quite the winner, no? Anyhoo, what have you been up to? And what do you do when you get stuck?