Ten Ways to Stop Being a Writer

1. Open your computer to a blank Google Doc and then decide now is a good time to update all your photos. Google: What’s the best photo storage website to use? (But really. I need help with this. Amazon Photos is acting weird all of a sudden. Please comment below.)
   
2. Read a few essays you wrote two years ago. If you're feeling brave, read the ones from five years ago. *Cringe* Burn it all down.
   
3. Tell people you’re a writer. When they ask what you write (once your face has stopped burning beet red with embarrassment), say, “Oh, just some stuff on the Internet. It’s silly! I’m not really a writer.”
   
4. Go to your website and pick a new theme, customize all your widgets. Update your ‘About Me’ and your profile photo. Stalk your favorite writers’ websites and imagine you would be a better writer if your website looked like theirs.
   
5. When your toddler naps, spend that time watching Parenthood for the tenth time. Then later, get mad at yourself for not using the time better—a real writer would have started a novel in that two-hour window.
   
6. Check-in with your writing group. Talking about writing with other writers is basically writing. 
   
7. Research graduate degrees in writing. Going back to school will make you a real writer. (In one to two years.) 
   
8. Google “hobbies for geriatric millennial moms.” (Yes, an actual article comes up.) Scan the list of options. You were never very good at crocheting as a kid, so scratch knitting off the list. You have chickens, so you can add “Birdwatching” to your list. Pickleball is also a possibility. 
   
9. Paint your nails. Wait 4-6 weeks for them to dry.
   
10. Share a post on Instagram, then when no one comments in 10 minutes, assume it’s because everyone hates you and you are a terrible writer. Go back to step 1.

//

Thanks to Daien Guo and Brevity Magazine for the prompt and my writer friends, Ashlee Gadd + Katie Blackburn, for sharing their posts first.