Interact With Me!

I keep thinking, "I need to write." I have a novel to rewrite, another fifty novels to continue working on, and approximately forty million short stories that I've yet to finish. I have so many options to choose from. Yet every time I plan to actually do it, I want to procrastinate. I don't want to work on the scene I'm currently on. Everything else in the entire world suddenly becomes more interesting.

Then my brain says, "You know what would be great? Starting this random idea I just had!"

"But... there's no plot, really. It's a vague character description."

"Then we'll have to work on that, won't we? Let's see, we could use this, and this... You know, I've been dying to work on a character like this, to really embrace this cool new concept I want to play with."

"I have like a billion unfinished drafts, and you want to start another one? With little direction with practically no concept of where we're even going with this?" I exclaim in fury.

"Start the outline. We mustn't forget any of these brilliant ideas."

And I keep wanting to read forum threads, research stuff unrelated to the story I claimed I was going to work on. Then, instead of thinking about my stories, I'm daydreaming about the stuff I'd like to be doing. I think by now, I've gone to several events, helped out with various things, gone to restaurants, seen movies at the theater, hung out with multiple people around my age, made multiple friends...

I'm bored. I don't interact with a wide range of people. I'm really, really bored. Bards could sing epic poems about how I'm bored and lonely and I wanna do something. And did I mention the monotony of my life?

'Hedger Humor' comic by Adrienne Hedger.

So here I am, hanging out on the internet, frittering my life away, because I've got nothing better to do than procrastinate and contemplate the inner workings of my brain. Really, as I think about it, that's how it was even before the quarantine, because I didn't get out enough, do enough. But now that everything's closed, now that people are afraid to be within an eighty-mile radius of anyone else, it's even more dull.
I was thinking at one point, "If I take walks often enough, the neighborhood will probably start to feel very small." And boy, oh boy, was I right. I want to walk for a while, not just a brief walk, but soon it seems like I've walked every main road at least four times. (Some of the streets, I actually have.) On top of that, I'm starting to imagine that by now, everyone's probably thinking, "There's that weird girl in the sunglasses again. Didn't she just pass our house like ten minutes ago?"

And then I call my friends while walking, and chat with them on the phone. And then I go home and chat with online friends on Discord. And then I check social media for the billionth time that day. But it's not enough, and I'm tempted to scroll through a forum thread that's got like a million billion bazillion posts. And I know I've read them before. But you know, that was five months ago, during... last NaNo. This is the same junk I pulled in November when I had a writing goal. And guess what? I didn't get much accomplished then, either.

Part of my problem is a general lack of motivation, and a lack of self-discipline to just get to work and not procrastinate. But I think on some level, my crummy mental state has also affected this.

I miss hanging out with people. Friends get busy, or they move away, so you don't get to talk to them or spend as much time with them. And then I moved to another state, and haven't made new friends. Or met many people near my age at all, really.
And I miss going out and doing stuff. Eating at a restaurant. Attending church. Visiting the library. Volunteering at the animal shelter. All those marvelous things that involve seeing places other than my house or the neighborhood, interacting with humans other than the family members in my household.
In short, I'm tired of sitting around with nothing going on. I want some of sort of positive, external stimuli. I want a change of pace, something new. I keep telling people, "You know, I didn't get out enough before, but now that the option to do stuff has been taken away, it's driving me crazy." The annoying thing is that I don't even know how long this will last, when we'll get back to normal. (Whatever 'normal' is.)

Really, the title of my blog post says it all. I feel like I'm on social media and forums because I want human interaction. I don't want to write stories, I want to be involved in a story. I want interesting plot events in my life.
Granted, it might be a while before that happens. A lot of places are closed right now. My friend's wedding was postponed. But upon things returning to regular programming, I hope to make some progress in the direction I need to go in. Find things to do, people to befriend. Until then, I need to concentrate on what I can do right now, and try not to dwell too much on the things currently unavailable to me. Perhaps if I shift my focus, try to accomplish what I can, I'll find some motivation, and not be so bored and stir-crazy. Only time will tell.

(P.S. If someone could send some motivation over here, that would be great. I'm not even good at trying to make myself be productive.)