M.B NOVELS®

There are two versions of me.

The first one is organized, responsible, and deeply committed to getting things done. She makes color-coded to-do lists, opens productivity apps, and genuinely believes that today will be the day she answers every email, updates every spreadsheet, and finally tackles all those small administrative tasks she’s been avoiding.

The second version of me sees a single sentence floating through her brain and immediately decides that nothing is more important than following it.

Somehow, the second version usually wins.

I’ve written scenes while university deadlines piled up in the corner waiting for me. I’ve abandoned perfectly reasonable plans because I suddenly got a great idea. I’ve convinced myself that outlining a future novel somehow counts as answering messages, updating my website, or completing whatever practical task I was originally supposed to be doing.

The worst part is that writing feels productive enough to justify it. If I spend three hours scrolling social media instead of working, I know I’ve procrastinated. That’s obvious. But if I spend three hours writing a completely unrelated story while ignoring my actual responsibilities, things become morally complicated. Technically, I was working. Just not on the thing I was supposed to be working on.

Writers love pretending this is an accident. We talk about inspiration striking at inconvenient moments, as though our brains are mysterious forces beyond our control. But if I’m being honest, I think part of the appeal is that writing lets us escape into a problem we’d rather solve.

Sometimes the task I’m avoiding is boring. Sometimes it’s stressful. Sometimes it requires decisions I’d rather postpone for another day. Writing, on the other hand, offers a different kind of challenge. Even when a story is difficult, it feels meaningful. I’d rather spend an afternoon figuring out why two fictional people won’t confess their feelings than figuring out a final essay due this week.

Still, I’ve started noticing something interesting: many of the things I write while procrastinating reveal what my brain is actually occupied with. If I’m avoiding a difficult decision, I’ll somehow end up writing about uncertainty. If I’m overwhelmed, my characters become overwhelmed. If I’m worried about the future, suddenly everyone in my manuscript is having an existential crisis. Writing may not solve the problem I’m avoiding, but it often circles it long enough to teach me something. Some of my favorite scenes have appeared during periods when I was supposed to be focused on entirely different things.

This is not me encouraging anyone to ignore their responsibilities, by the way. The emails still need answers. The forms still need filling out. The deadlines still exist. Future Me regularly suffers because Present Me got distracted by a plot twist. Future Me has every right to be annoyed. But I also think creativity rarely arrives according to schedule. It appears while you’re naked in some motel’s bed, folding laundry, answering messages, or trying very hard to focus on something else.

And sometimes the smartest thing you can do is follow it for a little while.

Maybe answer that email afterward, though.