I Apparently Cannot Survive Without the Internet

You know how sometimes something stops working and you suddenly realize just how much of your life depends on it?

Yeah.

My internet went out.

Not for an hour.

Not for an afternoon.

FOUR. DAYS.

And apparently I am not nearly as capable of living off-grid as I would like to believe. 😂

At first, I figured it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. I have a phone. I have data. Surely I could survive a few days without Wi-Fi.

Narrator: She could not.

“Just Use Your Phone”

Listen.

I CAN use my phone for a lot of things.

I can check Facebook. I can answer a quick email. I can look something up. I can scroll through social media when I should absolutely be doing something more productive.

But apparently there is a very big difference between “I can do this on my phone” and “I want to run my entire freaking life from my phone.”

Because I don’t.

I REALLY don’t.

Trying to do everything from that tiny screen made me realize how many things I normally use the internet for without even thinking about it.

Email. My website. Canva. Marketing. Research. Book stuff. Uploading things. Downloading things. All the random author-business tasks that somehow multiply every time I cross one off the list.

Could I technically do some of it from my phone?

Sure.

Did I want to spend four days trying to manage everything that way?

Absolutely not.

There are some things I need an actual computer for. Preferably with multiple tabs open, several programs running, and enough chaos happening simultaneously that I can pretend I know what I’m doing.

So for four days, a huge part of my normal routine basically came to a screeching halt.

Thank God I Schedule My Social Posts

There was ONE area where Past Morgan seriously came through for me.

I had already scheduled my social media posts for the week before the internet went out.

THANK GOD.

So if you saw me happily posting away on Facebook while I was apparently living in 1997, no, I wasn’t secretly sitting somewhere with perfect Wi-Fi pretending my internet was broken. 😂

Those posts were already scheduled and happily doing their thing without me.

Honestly, this might be the greatest argument I’ve ever found for scheduling content ahead of time.

Because everything that wasn’t scheduled?

Yeah… that wasn’t happening.

Creating new graphics. Planning upcoming posts. Website updates. Marketing behind the scenes. Checking all the different things authors are apparently supposed to check. All those little tasks that normally get scattered throughout the week.

Nope.

Meanwhile, my scheduled social media continued on without me while I sat at home occasionally glaring at the router like I could intimidate it into working again.

At least one version of me had her shit together.

Past Morgan, you did good. 😂

There Was One Unexpected Benefit…

Without the internet constantly sitting there waiting to distract me, I did something surprising.

I wrote.

A LOT.

Turns out when you remove Facebook, email, Canva, website updates, marketing, random Google searches, and the approximately 7,000 other things I can convince myself need my immediate attention…

I can actually get a ridiculous amount of writing done.

Who knew? 😂

And the timing was actually kind of perfect.

After spending so much of this summer going back through my older books, rewriting them, editing them, and getting their new editions out into the world, I’ve finally shifted my attention back to Unraveled Prophecies.

I’ve been wanting to get back to actually writing this story instead of constantly saying I’m going to get back to it.

Well…

Apparently all I needed was for the internet to disappear for four days. 😂

I had my notebooks.

I had my pens.

And neither one required Wi-Fi.

Advantage: writing everything by hand.

Maybe my stubborn refusal to give up my notebooks has finally paid off.

With nothing else demanding my attention every five seconds, I got a LOT of writing done.

And damn, it felt good.

Editing, However…

Yeah.

That didn’t happen.

Writing? Absolutely.

Editing?

Nope.

There’s only so much I can comfortably do without my normal computer setup, and editing is definitely one of those things.

Once my handwritten chapters are typed, I need to be able to sit down at my computer and really go through them. That’s where I start cleaning things up, catching repetition, fixing awkward sentences, questioning character decisions, checking continuity, moving things around, and occasionally wondering what the hell Past Morgan was trying to say.

Doing all of that from my phone?

No.

Just… no.

I have limits. 😂

So while the writing side of Unraveled Prophecies had an unexpectedly fantastic few days, the editing side sat patiently waiting for the internet to return.

We’ll call it balance.

Apparently EVERYTHING Requires the Internet

That’s probably what surprised me the most.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t scroll Facebook on my computer or watch something online.

It was realizing just how many completely normal things in my day depend on having an internet connection.

So much of being an indie author happens online.

The actual writing might happen in my notebooks, but nearly everything surrounding those words requires a connection eventually.

Editing. Formatting. Uploading. Marketing. Emails. Reviews. My website. Graphics. Reader communication. Research.

And that’s just the author stuff.

Then there are all the normal things we use the internet for every day without even thinking about them until suddenly we can’t.

Four days doesn’t sound like that long.

Until you’re actually disconnected for four days.

Then it feels like approximately seventeen years.

AND THEN THE INTERNET CAME BACK!

Finally.

Beautiful, glorious Wi-Fi.

I could use my computer again.

I could open all my tabs.

I could get back to work.

Everything was wonderful.

For approximately thirty seconds.

Because then I opened my email.

Oh.

Oh no.

Apparently emails do not stop arriving just because you don’t have internet.

Who knew?

So now I’m staring at everything that accumulated while I was gone and trying to figure out exactly where the hell I’m supposed to start.

Emails.

Messages.

Editing.

Marketing.

Website stuff.

Everything I normally handle a little bit at a time throughout the week apparently becomes one enormous pile when ignored for four days.

Meanwhile, Unraveled Prophecies is sitting over there looking very pleased with itself because it got almost all of my attention.

And you know what?

I’m actually okay with that.

Would I Do It Again?

Absolutely the hell not.

Let’s not get carried away here. 😂

I am NOT intentionally shutting off my internet for four days every time I need to finish a few chapters.

But there was something kind of nice about being forced to shut out everything else for a little while.

No marketing.

No emails.

No checking seventeen different things.

No bouncing between writing and social media and Canva and my website and whatever else caught my attention.

Just me, my notebooks, my pens, and the story I’ve been trying to get back to for months.

It reminded me that underneath all the other stuff that comes with being an indie author, the writing is still the reason I’m doing any of this in the first place.

The marketing matters.

The editing matters.

The website matters.

The social media matters.

And judging by what I’m currently looking at, the emails DEFINITELY matter.

But none of those things exist without the stories.

So I’m choosing to look at the last four days as an unexpected writing retreat.

An unwanted, mildly infuriating, technologically isolated writing retreat that I would never willingly book for myself.

But a writing retreat nonetheless. 😂

And now that I’m back online…

Pray for me while I attempt to unbury myself from these emails.

If you don’t hear from me again, assume the inbox won. 😂🖤