How my Brain Tricks my Brain into Doing the Things my Brain Actually Wants to Do

          I can proudly announce that so far, I have worked on my newest story every day in 2015. *crowd goes wild**Digs myself out from all the roses thrown on top of me* Thank you, thank you.

But how do you do it, Emma? How do you balance school, work, and writing? Are you some kind of demi-god?

Well, dear reader, I use the “Don’t Break the Chain” method, where you choose an activity and for each day you do that activity, you make an “x” on a calendar. The “x”s connect to form a chain (get it?). You skip a day, you break the chain, so don’t (break the chain that is). I have been so consumed in keeping my chain aesthetically pleasing, I’ve written more in the past two months than I had in the last half of 2014.

            But I’m a grown woman. Why the heck do I have to trick myself into being productive? If I genuinely want to be a writer and create things I’ll be proud of, why do I need these games to get me to actually put the time in?

For some reason my thought process goes exactly like this:

Creative fulfillment as an artist and a person? Meh. A tiny “x” that connects to more tiny “x”s? Hotdog, let me get my laptop!

I want that tiny “x”. I crave it.

Seriously, my brain is supposed to be the source of my logical capacities and yet it is the least logical of all my organs. Imagine if my more involuntary organs worked like my brain, if my heart one day said, “I know both you and I want me to keep beating, but you’re going to clean out your email inbox first.” I would be even less functional than I am now.

“But Emma,” one might ask, “if you want to mark the day off so bad, why don’t you just lie and make the ‘x’ without writing?” Again, my brain fails me. I’m afraid of breaking the rules, as if this sheet of paper I printed off the internet is somehow going to punish me for not holding up my end of the bargain.

But I do know that I have a sheet of paper with a string of brightly colored “x”s. And, you know, the early drafts of a novel that I’m semi-proud of. But I mostly pleased with the “x”s.

If you want to join me in this circle of desire and guilt (and I know you do), you can print out your own “Break the Chain” calendar designed by Karen Kavett.