Blogging as a Displacement Activity?

I intended to write a response to a Fiction Friday prompt on Trees tonight (even though it was last Friday’s prompt). I couldn’t decide whether to do that longhand in my journal or on the computer to post it.

But I needed to check my email for something, and then I wound up reading twitter and google reader, and Leanne posted about updating Wordpress, which I’ve been putting off. So I figured I might as well update it and went through that process. Now I’m playing around with the new features in posting, like incorporating music and videos, etc…. which didn’t work or you would be listening to something right now! In the background, I’m listening to Obama’s acceptance speech, which is awesome!

And now I realize that I have procrastinated writing and am completely distracted, which makes me think about Jodi Cleghorn’s post from the other day about blogging being a “displacement activity.” She had read an article that said blogging was a displacement activity that interfered with, and was detrimental to, writing. And while I agree with Jodi that it might be procrastination, but it is not displacement, and that blogging IS writing and has inspired me to write when I never would have, I also know that too often I get distracted with reading blogs or playing with my own blog design. It takes willpower to use blogging as an inspiration for writing without letting it interfere with the actual writing.

So now I’m getting into bed to read my new copy of Women Who Run With Wolves for a little while before I fall asleep. And I’ll wake up early to write without playing on the internet!

PS- I just encountered my first problem with the upgrade. It wouldn’t let me insert the links to other posts without switching to html. If anyone’s figured this out, I’d love to hear how to fix it.