It’s Media Deprivation Week. (Stop Laughing.)

I’m in a group that is working through Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way. It’s a book on discovering – or recovering – your creative side, and in theory should be helpful with overcoming a creative block.

This is, however, my fourth time at taking on this book, the second with this group.

I’m already behind on my weekly tasks, and as we enter Week Four, I’m foreseeing a possible fifth attempt. I don’t know if that is optimistic because I know I’ll give it a go again, or fatalistic because I’m assuming I won’t get through this one, either.

Now, depending on which edition of the book you have, Week Four is about Media Deprivation (older editions) or, more specifically, Book Deprivation (newer editions). The thought behind this action is that, as blocked creatives, all the sensory input fills our heads and distracts us from our own creative process. When we quiet the external input, our internal output will increase – or something like that.

I wouldn’t know, because this is the week it always goes to shit.

Honestly, for me, it’s the social media that causes so much noise in my head and sends me off the rails of focus, so I vowed that this week, I would cut out my social media usage to the bear minimum, maybe for 10 minutes in the morning and 10 in the evening to respond to tweets/Facebook messages related to ongoing book blog tours.

(I can see you laughing.)

As for books – well, due to poor planning, I have three book tours I’ve agreed to do, and three books to read in short time. So I told myself I would ONLY read the one book for which I have an immediate review due.

Reading on in the book, there is a list of things that people do when they are not reading, which include such activities as: listen to music, pay bills, sort closets, cook, rearrange the kitchen, clean the house.

You know, ALL the things that I do when I’m procrastinating putting my ass in the chair and writing.

BOOKS are not my problem, honestly. Social media is. I already feel like I’m lost in a wasteland (even though Twitter is, more frequently, a total wasteland.)

So I’m going to attempt to take a break from both – maybe not total media deprivation, because blogging does involve social media. And book blogging involves, well, books. I’ll check back with you in a week to let you know how it goes.

Thoughts and prayers are needed, people.

And stop laughing.