So, what are your vices? Mine is internet surfing and checking email. Other than that, I pretty much just stare at the blank page until it drives me insane - and I get some interesting scenes that way :-) How can you tell whether you're doing serious work or just "waxing the cat"?
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Waxing the Cat
This term, "waxing the cat", I first heard at Viable Paradise. I don't know if that's where it originated or if it's more widespread, but it refers to ways that we stall when we know we ought to be writing. Some behaviors are really obvious, i.e. your cat neither wants nor appreciates being waxed, but some are less obvious. People do long, detailed outlines and then spend hours adjusting the format and fonts. Or they draw a detailed map of their world and then color it all in. Even harder to resist, researching topics that only peripherally relate to your story.
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And why oh why do we put off doing what we love, what we have chosen to do? I just do not understand but I am so guilty of it also. I read writing job newsletters and then put them on virtual stickies and clutter up my screen with these stupid possibilities but follow up on very few of them.
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome - I have never heard that saying, but I like it, and I am definitely guilty of it. I think I loose myself with email or blogging or facebook. Yes, those can create big trouble for me.
ReplyDeleteFor me blogging has become a seriously waxed cat of late.
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Moody Writing
@mooderino
I am a pro cat waxer. Checking email, surfing, even laundry. Yikes. You'd think I'd get over it at some point.
ReplyDeleteWhat a charming image! What cat would stand for such a thing?
ReplyDeleteI waste way too much time wondering what's going to happen next. Will this be the book I publish? Will I get my dream editor? Who is going to be my agent? WHO CARES? I've got to go forward and expect the unexpected.
I remember when I was a kid, I used to dream about being a bestselling author. Now I look at bestselling authors and note how much material they have to produce and under what conditions and know that I'm not there yet, so that's what I've got to worry about. And yes, I over-worry about that and thus wax that proverbial cat.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the person who came up with that term was not a cat person...
Waxing the cat ... that image is staying with me for a loooong time! :)
ReplyDeleteYeah. Social media is my vixen. It's awful because I'm totally justified in doing it and it's FUN! But I have to really be careful I'm not having too much fun with that and remember to go have fun with the MS as well. :)
Ha ha, that's a good one! Um, there are so many ways I'm guilty of waxing the cat, but the foremost has to be reading in any form, such as: blogs, books, magazines, online writing articles, books on writing, etc. Sigh, it's a great way to go . . . until I realize I'm stalling.
ReplyDeleteMine are the same as yours--internet stuff, checking Twitter, checking email...I'm terrible about waxing the cat!
ReplyDeleteWaxing the cat? Snort, snuffle, snicker! I've never heard of that phrase, but I do it all the time. And I am so TOTALLY guilty of researching topics only peripherally related to my WIP! (Although they often make good blog posts.)
ReplyDeleteMore recently, I've been wasting ridiculous amounts of time trying to track down the earliest use of a word or idiom, to determine whether I can use it in a historical setting ... when it would be far easier to just rewrite the sentence!
Diane! I do that too. I have a dictionary that tells me the first date a word appears in print, and I check it all the time to make sure my words are "old" enough.
ReplyDeleteI'd say go ahead and keep it up! I love to read prose spiced with well aged words.
I think this sounds like a distortion of the phrase "vacuum the cat" which basically means the same thing, but it is something that people actually do. (A small low-powered hand vacuum can be used to clean up cat hair _before_ it gets on the furniture.) It's seen as a classic time waster when there are more important things to be done.
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