Full disclosure: It’s Thursday, May 13th. These are the first sentences I’ve written in the blog post due to go up in less than 48 hours. It’s 9 a.m. (Update: 10:30 a.m.) I’m in my pajamas on the couch. My breakfast dishes are on the coffee table. I *think* my kids are up and doing their asynchronous day assignments. The cat is behind me, snoring. I am four days behind on my word count goals, and I can feel my undone workout looming over me, making my clothes tighter.

This is the first time I haven’t had content mapped out in advance and I’ve been struggling to figure out what to post.

Here I am, waiting for inspiration to strike...

…

Are those crickets?

…

Where did that tumbleweed come from?

I keep going back to a conversation I had last week with another baseball mom. She mentioned that she’d read my latest progress report and it made her feel unproductive. “I still have laundry in the dryer,” she confessed. We laughed and commiserated about the never-ending chores that seem to enjoy taunting us.

But it got me thinking.

I’ve been writing those “reports” with the intention of giving a behind-the-scenes peek at what a newbie author’s publishing journey really looks like, as well as serving as the long-winded answer to the well-meaning question: “How’s the writing going?”

I never meant to brag or make anyone feel like they weren’t working “hard enough” in comparison. I sincerely apologize if that is how it came out.

Progress is only half the picture. Today, I hope to fill in the negative space around it.

I present to you my Regression Report.

Here’s a list of all the things I’m NOT doing when I’m focused on writing:

Cooking
Housework
My hair See also: makeup
Wearing non-pajama, grown-up clothes
Home repair
Talking to actual people
Going outdoors What is “outdoors?”

And over here we have the list of things I am struggling with:

Waiting for Permission, Imposter Syndrome’s nasty cousin.
After a year of practice, I’m finally comfortable referring to myself as a writer; however I still struggle with others accepting me as one. I am hesitant to move forward in public aspects of writing (querying, awards submissions, etc) until someone I deem more experienced says I’m ready. Trusting myself is the hardest part of the journey.
Maintaining that precarious balancing act of self-care and work.
Here’s a fun cause-and-effect relationship: When the writing is going well, my pants get tighter and I ghost my friends. When the writing’s going poorly, my house is spotless and my family gets fed. There must be a happy medium… right?
Avoiding entertaining productivity-killers.
Writing is full of rabbit holes and “Squirrel!”-like distractions. I can easily lose an hour to the siren call of Instagram or a particularly interesting “research” session. Spoiler alert: There will be a dog in Welcome to Blooms. I spent a whole DAY looking at dog pictures, casting the role. I think we had cereal for dinner and I wrote no new words.

And finally, the list of things I need to do but am pretending I don’t because, well, I don’t wanna:

Figuring out GoodReads. Another party I’m late to.
Updating my website. What? I can’t just make a thing and be done with the thing? What kind of torture is this?!
Cutting my coffee intake. Repeat after me: Coffee is NOT a meal, coffee is NOT a meal.
Navigating the City’s incomprehensible permitting process so we can finally install a sprinkler system. Why is this so hard?
Actually READING all the articles and posts I’ve bookmarked. Turns out “saving” is not the same as “learning.”
Limiting family screen times. It’s hard to tell my kids to get off their phones when I’m on Instagram almost constantly.
Writing my mid-May blog post. Hey look! One down!

So there it is. A warts-and-all look at the programs running in the background, slowing down my processor speed. The not-so-gentle reminders that progress is not a straight line, nor is it even a recognizable shape. That for every item ticked off a list, three more take its place like a horrible, immortal chore-Hydra.

I am NOT “more productive” than anyone else. I am choosing different things to accomplish. Which only means that many, MANY other things are going undone. I am so blessed that I have family and friends helping me and looking the other way while things fall down around me as I tappity-tap-tap at my computer. Now if only a fairy godmother would appear…

… although, even in the fairy tale, you’ll notice she didn’t offer to do Cinderella’s dishes.

Xoxo, y’all!