When Life Barks Louder Than the Muse

Geeveston, Tasmania

Let’s talk about distractions. Not the sexy, "I fell down a TikTok rabbit hole" kind. I mean the real, gnarly ones:
🦠 The flu.
🐶 A new puppy.
🧠 A brain that feels like mashed potatoes.

Yep. That’s been my life lately. A cocktail of fever dreams, muddy paw prints, and the sneaky guilt of knowing I have writing to do, but zero focus to actually do it.

The flu knocked me flat for a week. Just when I could sit up without feeling like a Victorian widow swooning on her chaise, we brought home a new puppy—adorable, chaotic, and currently convinced my slippers are his and a lovely thing to munch on, even with my feet are connected to them.

All the while, my to-do list continues to grow. There's a book that needs writing. A newsletter that needs writing. A short story that’s been staring at me like, “You done yet?” A grant report to write. And every day I think, Right. Today’s the day I get on top of it. Then I’m pulled into something else—puppy patrol, errands to buy more dog toys for the nibbler, or just plain overwhelm.

Sound familiar?

It’s not that I’m not writing at all. I sneak in snippets—thirty minutes here, a scribbled idea there. But I’m not getting to the deep stuff. The real work. And that’s frustrating, because the ideas are there, simmering like the chilli in the slow cooker.

So how do we deal when life is extra and our brains are not cooperating?

Here are a few things I’ve found help—when I actually remember to do them:

When I feel like roadkill, opening Scrivener feels impossible. So I use a sticky note, a voice memo, a half-assed scribble in my Notes app. I lower the bar. Remove the drama. A sentence is a win. Two? That’s wine time.

Forget the dreamy writing retreat vibe. If I wait for perfect conditions, I’ll be waiting until the dog is potty-trained, the flu has passed, and Mercury is out of retrograde. So I write while the kettle boils. While the puppy naps. When the guilt is loudest and I can’t stand it anymore.

Sometimes the reason we’re not writing isn’t laziness—it’s brain overload. It’s exhaustion. Sometimes you just need half an hour watching “Say Yes to The Dress” on YouTube.

Life transitions, illnesses, emotional fatigue… they all chip away at the creative bandwidth. I often tell myself that we have to give ourselves a break. Rest is part of the process too. I have a hard time with taking time to rest. But I also haven’t fallen asleep on the couch in years and, over the last two weeks, it’s happened a few times now.

There’s always too much to do. I hate the word ‘busy’ but when you’re dealing with a (self-imposed) writing schedule, settling into life back at home after being away for 3 months, getting the flu, and dealing with a rambunctious 8 month old puppy, it becomes a LOT.

Instead of trying to do it all, I pick one task for the day. One. If I get to it, great. If I don’t, it doesn’t go on my “you’re a failure” list. It just shifts to tomorrow. Guilt-free. I’m not a machine. I have to remember that. That goes for my writing, too.

When focus slips, I return to rituals that tell my brain: Hey, it’s writing time. For me, it’s declaring my need to write, then I head to my writing studio. There, the heater goes on, the door to the world is closed, and I play ‘spa’ music to calm my brain. With that, I go into work mode. Somehow it works, but it’s getting here that’s the challenge.

Here’s the truth I’m clinging to like a security blanket: Not every day is productive. But every day counts. Even the messy ones. Even the ones with snotty tissues and puppy training pads. The words are still there. They’ll wait. They have to. If I try and force it, the results will be crap.

So here’s to writing through the chaos. One muddy paw print at a time.

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Let me know in the comments: What’s your biggest writing distraction right now—and how are you dealing with it?