Friends

It seems the days that I have the most trouble writing, and when I am most likely to succumb to memory fails and miss a day entirely, are the days when my friends come over to hang out.

I love spending time with my friends, and I generally don't turn them down when they want to hang out. There are certainly days that I have done so, but I enjoy their company most of the time, especially when we're playing video games, which is conveniently what we spend most of our time doing. But when they come over, I don't spend much of my time thinking about writing. I easily lose track of the time, and before I know it, I've missed my chance.

I don't want to kick my friends out, because I want to spend time with them. And I don't overly want to be writing while they are around, because I don't want to make them feel like I'm shafting them. But it can be quite difficult at times to do the things that I need to do with them around.

I have less trouble with this when it comes to my girlfriend. Perhaps because I've effectively trained her to be a reminder to me to write, and because she actively wants me to succeed. Perhaps because I simply feel more comfortable around her, and know that she will still be there, ready and waiting for me when I am done writing. In fact, there are times when it almost seems easier to write when she is around than when I am alone. I can't fully explain why that is, because I don't fully understand it myself, but at times it does seem to be the case.

A big part of the problem here, of course, doesn't lie with my friends at all, but with me. If I took care of my writing early in the day, instead of procrastinating and pushing things back, it wouldn't be an issue at all. But because of the fact that I don't, and I end up writing so late at night, losing track of time as the night goes on becomes a massive problem.

In writing this, I don't want to imply that I'm blaming my friends at all for me being bad about sticking to my schedule. The problem lies solely in me, and how I act with my friends around, and even how I act when they're not around. It's more of that I want to document my thoughts and get my ideas and problems written down, because I tend to remember things better once they're out in the open. I'm just trying to make sense of how I act.

Funnily enough, despite the fact that I struggle with writing when my friends are around, they have a tendency to be one of my larger sources of inspiration, whether they mean to be or not. I will occasionally throw out questions at them, seemingly out of nowhere, because I am trying to fish for ideas. Hearing other people talk about stuff is a good way of getting your own thoughts going, after all, and when stories abound from those around you, your own stories tend to come out as well. Which is exactly what I'm looking for.