Netflix Is Interfering With My Writing Life!

Netflix, and currently Orange is the New Black, is interfering with my writing life.

A couple months ago, we decided to get rid of our TV service. We had hundreds of channels, but only a handful of them were worth anything, and we watched more movies than TV shows. After getting rid of the TV service and adding in a subscription to Hulu and Amazon Prime, we'll save the equivalent of two plane tickets to almost anywhere in the U.S. over the next year.

But the best part was going to be that it would change how we watch TV.  No more endless hours of the TV being on just because one show follows another and it's easier to keep it on. Now, we would have to be deliberate in our TV watching and the rest of our time could be spent doing more productive activities, like reading or writing. The problem is I didn't anticipate Netflix's ability to make a person want to binge watch whatever current series the watcher is hooked on! Most shows have several seasons of each show available - that's hours of watching to get to the end! And I always have to know how it ends….

I have a greater appreciation for old fashioned TV channels that show one episode a week. It sucks to have to wait a week to find out what's in store for your favorite characters, and what's going to happen next, but it gives you a whole week to do something else, something useful. When the next episode is just a click away, it's much too easy to just...click.

Not only is the next episode at the tip of your fingertips, but the titles of all the episodes are there, enticing you to jump to conclusions about what they mean. Last night, I was going to only watch one episode, maybe two at the most, but that plan went out the window as soon as I went to the list of episodes to start the next one (Episode 11: Tall Men With Feelings) and I read the titles of the episodes coming up. Episode 13 was titled "Can't Fix Crazy" and I got worried! Crazy-Eyes has grown on me and I don't want anything to happen to her, but the title of Episode 13 sounded very ominous. They couldn't hurt Crazy-Eyes! So I had to watch all the way through Episode 13 before I went to bed to be sure she was okay. Fortunately, the title was just referring to Crazy-Eyes not being able to change who she was and actually sing in front of the rest of the inmates at the Christmas pageant, so I was able to go to bed, finally, after that episode.

Willpower has never been one of my strengths, but I do have determination (you'd think the two would go hand in hand, but they don't) and I am determined to spend more time writing and getting through my to-be-read pile. Not that I'm giving up OITNB, but I will practice restraint. There are thirteen more episodes I've yet to see and my goal is to NOT watch all of them by the end of the weekend.

And if that doesn't work, I'll may have to cancel my Netflix subscription...