When I’m not writing, I’m probably thinking about writing.
When I am not writing, I’m working at my paid job….after all, this writing gig doesn’t pay the bills, does it?!
When I’m not writing, I’m eating breakfast, showering, cleaning my teeth, and travelling to my job, which on some days now, means, sitting at the card table set up in the corner of my bedroom and opening the laptop.
(Update: since I wrote the first draft of this, during the pandemic, I got a new job – now I work entirely from home. To reward myself, I upgraded and got an actual, fancy-pants desk instead of an old card table! So now, “travelling to work” means, hastily tidying the bed (in case there’s a zoom meeting I’ve forgotten about right at 9am), sitting down at the desk next to the bed, and opening the laptop.)
When I’m not writing, I’m making lunch. Or dinner. Look, although it may seem as if I live a fast-paced life that’s way too intrepid/glamorous to be spent standing at a stove watching potatoes boil, I really live a standard 3-meals-a-day kind of life, preferably with a delicious snack thrown in as well.
For goodness sake, I get a headache if I haven’t eaten some carbohydrates by midday!
When I’m not writing, often, I’m reading. I managed to do almost nothing but read, for a whole Saturday, recently. All one has to do to achieve this is become an anti-social hermit! It takes hard work but it’s worth it when you get there.
When I’m not writing, I’m frequently editing. A lot of my so-called “writing” is actually editing. It’s not unusual for me to get as far as version 29. Sometimes I wonder if the edits I make to version 29 are just reinstating the words, concepts, and punctuation I got rid of back at version 8. I don’t check to find out, just in case they really are.
When I’m not writing, occasionally I’m logging into Submittable to see if anything I’ve submitted has changed status. It never has. Often, nothing has even made it to my “submitted” queue, which, although completely my own doing, just makes it all the more disappointing when I log in, hoping against hope for a positive response.
When I’m not writing, I’m thinking about a sentence that’s going to redeem a piece I’ve been tinkering over for 3 years, or an idea for a piece of writing that strikes me in that moment as experimental and quirky and the breakthrough I’ve been working towards. But then I remember I need to phone my elderly mother and run through what medical appointments she has coming up, and who is taking her to them, and then I need to phone the Aged Care Service providers to arrange a time for them to talk to us about Home Care packages, and then I need to get back to the spreadsheet I was filling in for my paid job, and then I need to do other work-related tasks, until it’s 5.30pm, and then I need to make dinner and watch the news and bring in the laundry and clean up the kitchen and put out the bins. After I’ve done all that, I need to drink some wine and fall in a heap on the bed. When I’m brushing my teeth later it crosses my mind that I had a good idea earlier that day but I can’t remember what it was and then I fall asleep.
When I’m not writing, I’m reading other people’s Tweets. When I’m not writing anything else I’m probably spending a ridiculous amount of time crafting a Tweet and then not posting it.
When I’m not writing, I’m thinking about local politics, and class divisions, and how the working class are always shafted while CEOs of corporate companies rake in utterly obscene salaries. In Australia, I look no further than the CEO of Qantas, naturally, since he’s always popping up in the news.
When I’m not writing, sometimes I’m online shopping. Or grocery shopping, IRL.
When I’m not writing, sometimes I’m drinking a glass of wine and watching Hard Quiz on the ABC.
When I am not writing, I’m listening to possums screeching from the trees outside my bedroom window. At least, I hope it’s possums I’m listening to.
When I’m not writing, at night, I’m sleeping.
Blathering About Nothing 
Blather away!