Amanda Hocking

Amanda's Blog Post

Things I’ve Done Today That Weren’t Writing

April 16th, 2012 by
This post currently has 21 comments
  • Slept.
  • Changed the light bulbs in my bathroom.
  • Used Shazam to discover what that song is that I really like on that commercial (Alex Clare – “Too Close”).

  • Opened boxes from agent and found foreign books, so I tried to translate Switched back into English from Portuguese (Trocada), even though I already know what the book said because I wrote it (the English version, anyway).
  • Pre-ordered Motion City Soundtrack’s new album Go on vinyl.
  • Watched Judge Judy.
  • Decided that even though I believe that Pearl Jam’s album Ten is one of the greatest albums of all time, my favorite song performed by Eddie Vedder is “Hard Sun.”
  • Told my cat she was my favorite thing ever.
  • Told my cat she was my least favorite thing ever a few minutes later when she refused to sit with my anymore.
  • Looked at pictures of Angelina Jolie’s ring on the internet and thought it sounded really silly to me that they were calling her “newly engaged.” I know she is, but she’s been with the father of her six children for seven years. It’s actually not that big of a deal to anyone but them and their family.
  • Added more staples to my stapler.
  • Went on Wikipedia to see who invented the stapler. (Wikipedia says that George McGill was the first to patent it, but apparently, somebody made one for King Louis XV in the 18th century.)
  • Ate Taco Johns for supper after being shorted a burrito. 
  • Tried to find out what The Jim Henson Company owns since they don’t own the Muppets or Seasame Street anymore. (According to henson.com, they work on a number of original children’s programming, including my favorites Sid the Science Kid and Dinosaur Train, as well as some new “adult” themed programming under Henson Alternative, and they have the Creature Shop, which makes creatures and special effects for movies and television. They also still own the rights to Fraggles, Labyrinth, and Dark Crystal.)
  • Practiced my puppetering skills trying to make my muppet, Lemmy, talk to my dog. My dog tried to shake with him, so I’m counting it as a semi-success.  
    Lemmy
  • Spent a great deal of time trying to figure out if the slippers I put on my feet are in fact my slippers or my friend Valerie’s who is staying with me. Eventually, I decided that they’re probably mine, and even if they’re not, Val probably won’t want them back after my feet have been in them.
  • Googled “how to get my Twitter account verified.”
  • Thought about how I need to file my nails but did not actually file my nails.
  • Tried to make the lights in my office stop flickering and failed horribly. I am beginning to believe that my office is haunted.
  • Wrote this list of things I did instead of writing.

Now I’m going to unplug the internet and hopefully get to working. And that’s how I write a book.

Leave a Reply to Craig Hansen Cancel reply

  • This gave me a much needed smile. Thanks!!

  • Craig Hansen says:

    Ms. Hocking,

    Did you see last Sunday’s CELEBRITY APPRENTICE? Jim Henson’s kids were on and the task revolved around Muppetry.

    If you missed it, stream it on NBC or Hulu. It’s a must-see for any Henson fan.

  • HeatherLynn says:

    Everyone’s got their own process….I find that when I sit down to write, I mostly want to rebel against myself and read facebook posts I would normally skip over, pay bills online, google “how many calories does having sex burn”?, I ask my dog why he keeps staring at me, because seriously, that dog’s got a major starting problem….he want’s SOMETHING, and after three years, I’ve still not figured it out…..now, put me in my car, driving….and I have an idea that I have to pull over to the side of the road to jot down…put me at work, and I’m dying to sneak online to my acrobat account and write ten pages when I have a stack of files on my desk that need worked on! I think it’s rebellion….when we’re kids, we don’t want to do what our parents want us to, when we’re adults, we have no one to rebel against on a daily basis but ourselves….

    that’s my theory anyway.

    ~hl~

  • raymonds0528 says:

    Hey Amanda… if the lights in your room that keep flickering are those that are in a ceiling fan and are the compact florescent kind, odds are they are flickering because of the current running thru the fan. The easy fix for this is to replace one of those bulbs with a regular old fashioned light bulb… it will ground the current and stop the flickering… (yay for google and having the same problem)…

  • Hi Amanda,

    My name is Fabrice Rousselot and I am the New York Bureau Chief for the French newspaper Liberation in Paris. Currently working on a story about ebooks in the US and would be quite interested in talking to you if possible.
    You can reach me at : f.rousselot@liberation.fr
    Thank you very much
    Fabrice

  • Johanna J. says:

    Now I want a cat…

  • Alivia says:

    Now I want a burrito…

  • Suzanne says:

    Oh man, Judge Judy and Pearl Jam! I love it! 🙂 I feel transported back to the 90’s.
    I tell my dog he’s my favorite until he starts hogging all my pillows and waking me up at 3 in the morning to go pee.

  • L.D. Davis says:

    The important thing is…you kind of know where the stapler came from…

  • Annie says:

    Amanda, I have totally missed these random messages by you. Glad they are back…
    Annie—-“still” a time warp ringtone user. You have def. made a difference in my life!!!! 🙂