Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The Demons Who Plague Me

In which I blame invisible enemies for my failure to be productive as a writer in any form. Yup, I blame invisible demons. Like the sane person I am.

Demons Who Plague Me

The demon who runs errands
The “you need to make time to exercise” demon
The “reading is research” demon
The demon who blogs
The prewriting demon
The “you need to spend time with your kids” demon
The food demon
YouTube
The get organized demon
The don’t have the right equipment demon
The "look how nice that other mother's scrapbook is; what record of YOUR kids' lives do you even have?" demon
The “who do you think you are?” demon
The no ideas demon
The demon of sweeping mines and breaking blocks
The demon of others’ writing
My mom (because she calls me every morning to chat)
The "You should be nicer to your mom when she calls" demon
The “I should really...” demon
The outline demon
The “I need a schedule” demon
The demon who starts Monday
The demon who sends her kids to school/daycare sick and then my kids get it
The demon who breaks stuff in my house
The demon who knows what not to wear
The demon who sings 80s songs in my mind
The demon who says, “But someone might read it!”
The “you don’t deserve this great life, you’d better give something back to keep karma on your side” demon
The demon of zzzzzzz
Teacher Inservice Days
The guilt over being mean to my kids in the morning demon
The forgot a pen demon
The demon who shoe shops
The demon who says this project isn’t working, do another one instead
The demon who makes lists instead of writing
Etc. etc. etc.

Who plagues you?

14 comments:

Unknown said...

Sending you angels and fairy dust...jill

Elise Murphy said...

My God woman, what's left?????

Yes. Yes. and Yes.

-The revision demon.
-Children that destroy lives and property. (are those child demons?)
-Cat, Dog, Chicken, Frog Demons
-Depression Demons
-My writing SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS demons
-Costco Demon
-Should I call, maybe I should, no I should wait demon

Vijaya said...

Jacqui, you and I must share some of the same demons. Right now the pup is my biggest demon ... but a very cute and cuddly one.

Jacqui said...

Thanks, Jill!

Elise, oh, the evil "my writing SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS demon." How I hate him.

Vijaya, yes. I forgot to add "my cats" to the list!

Diane T said...

Definately the cat demon ... mine this morning was meowing piteously and insisting I throw milk rings for her enjoyment. She won't fetch them back any more (she's too fat), so I have to leave my desk to pick them up. It's all her fault!

I find the Sudoku demon pretty disabling, too. That's my fault.

Then there's the "paid assignment" demon who insists I do real work and get paid for it, so I spend time writing about other people's careers instead of working on mine. That demon brings me money, at least, but then that tempts the shopping demon.

The gardening demon is making me go to website and browse catalogs for a new garden in the front yard.

The blogger demon, definitely.

The rejection demon is hard to face. Why write when no one wants to read it anyway?

I need an exorcist. Got chocolate?

Mary Witzl said...

My computer plagues me. I walk past it and it murmurs sweet nothings at me. It is a siren and it will stop at nothing to get my attention. I was packing up boxes of books and it reached out and pulled me away from them, just like that. I've got to stop getting so close to it (and maybe turning it on).

Plus I've got almost all of your demons too, except no mom to call me and distract me anymore (sniff). If she were around, I'd happily blame her; I certainly blame my kids and husband when I get the chance.

Susan Sandmore said...

Many of your problems are mine. My most aggravating one right now is Must Work Outside The Home. I hope I can squish it like a bug someday.

J. Thorp said...

Might I add, the "not-so-witty witty comment demon," the "who's facebooking today demon," the "persistent email checker demon," the "I've-just-about-had-enough-political-news, but-not-quite demon" and the "persistent email re-reader/sent email editor demon" ... yeah, they all stink!

Jacqui said...

Diane: Oh, Sudoku. It is possible someone around here used to be a bit addicted before her family did an intervention...

Mary: I think our computers are in cahoots.

Thorp: Hee hee. Persistent email re-checker. And yeah, Facebook. Evil evil facebook.

Susan: I hope so too!

C.R. Evers said...

My most recent demons,

the rejection demon (those reject letters tend to send me into a downward-non-motivational-spiral)Got one of those today. One where I actually thought I had a shot. :0(

add me to the list of facebook demons. especially the "decorate my apartment in Yoville, demon.

the "You're never going to get it right, so why hurry?" demon.

Then I just echo all the ones you already listed.

christy

Jacqui said...

Oh, Christy, I'm sorry. Darn rejector demon.

The "you're never going to get it right so why hurry" demon lives strong in my house these days.

Everyone, please allow me to add:
the demon who cans jam (27 jars today - yum).

J. Thorp said...

that jam-canning demon seems more like a pixie -- a loveable little sprite who might also bake bread and regale a person with outlandish tales over cups of cider.

bad pixie! (don't stop.)

Jacqui said...

Thorp, she's a demon, no doubt about it. Whole day of day care today. Whole ending of novel to re-write. All I wrote was, "Raspberry September 08" 27 times.

J. Thorp said...

ah! your own little "all work and no play" moment. At least it was just 27 times, not over and over on reams of paper ...

"here's jacqui!"