How to lose five pounds in three days

I'm not saying I'm a weight loss guru or anything, but I think I've found a pretty painful way to drop a lot of weight fast. Worry not! I plan to share it with everyone. See, I've unintentionally lost about five pounds over the past few days.

Here's how you can do it, too!

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Step One: Get a stomach virus of some sort
I'm talking about the kind of stomach virus that completely debilitates you. If your stomach hurts so much you can't move without tearing up, you're on the right track.

Step Two: Ride that sweet wave of not wanting to eat anything
All that crying will be worth it when your appetite disappears. The moment chocolate cake doesn't make you say "I could go for that!" is when you'll know this has happened.

Step Three: Profit
Your nose may still be running, but you've found the secret to instant weight loss! Pat yourself on the back, which is now slightly easier to do because of all the awful starvation.

I have to point out that, as I'm writing this, I've finally started to crave actual food again. Gideon and I will probably be ordering some garlic chicken and crag rangoons in the next 10 minutes. So keep watching for the follow-up to this, "How to gain five pounds in 12 hours."

The write thing

Earlier this week, the cast of Hamilton performed at the Grammy's before winning the award for best musical album. Lin-Manuel Miranda delivered an amazing acceptance speech, and somehow I found myself having an existential crisis.

But Sam, you're only 24! How can you have an existential crisis? Shouldn't you still be ecstatic about having the freedom to eat ice cream for dinner every night? 

Well, voices in my head, I'm very talented at convincing myself I'm doing everything wrong. You should know that. Aside from my crippling anxiety, I can't help but feel I'm not doing enough creative writing. I see all these successful creative geniuses who are only 10 years older than me and worry I won't have accomplished anything substantial by the time I'm their age.

I want to write books. I want to write poems and short stories and screenplays. Most importantly, I want my work to reach people outside of Arkansas. I love my job and the people I work with, but sometimes I think I'll never be more than I am today.

My biggest problem is not having the motivation to write creative pieces in my free time. I do have free time. I'm not going to lie and say I work my ass off and never have time to eat or sleep or breathe. I do. While I work really hard when I do work, I usually have at least one or two days off during the weekend.

To make matters worse, I get inspired all the time. I can't tell you how many times I've had an idea for a piece I never followed through on. Just a month ago, I outlined a pretty stellar short story to Gideon in the car. We were driving back from Branson, Mo. after visiting with one of his friends. Gideon asked me if I had any story ideas, and I told him one.

(I'm not sharing it here because there's a chance I might write it someday and I'll be damned if you steal my short story idea, Mom!)

"That's really interesting," he told me. "You should write that."

"I should," I said. "I'll do that this weekend."

Then I decided to spend my free time watching Netflix and eating chocolate instead. So it's not inspiration that's lacking here; I've got more inspiration than the Duggars have kids - including grandchildren, of course. It's more about forcing some type of motivation on myself. I'm also really good at coming up with excuses for why I'm not writing in my spare time and I'm so stubborn that I let those excuses rule my attitude.

I don't have a good computer to write on at home. I really need to catch up on Melrose Place, even though it's been over since the late 90s. My cats will be upset if I pay attention to a computer and not them.

Yes, Heather Locklear, you are much more important than my future.

Seriously, I can find any reason under the sun to avoid personal writing. I'm not sure why I do that. Maybe I'm afraid my writing won't be good enough? I can fantasize about the writer I could be in the future without ever writing anything that might prove it. It's easier that way.

YEAH! I'll win an Oscar for best original screenplay. And of course I'm going to do some freelance work for Vanity Fair in-between juggling my sixth book tour and lifestyle blog. (My lifestyle blog would mostly be about what toppings complement a pizza best and how Tyra Banks is an inspiration to everyone with dead eyes.)

To be honest, I'm not sure if I'll ever be more than a small town newspaper reporter. Sometimes I think I'm OK with that. After all, I love my job and my coworkers. I get to see my work in print three times a week. Not many writers can say that.

Other times, I wonder if I could be doing more right now to be the writer I want to be. I know I could. I could easily do more to make that happen without changing anything I'm doing professionally at the moment. So why aren't I doing that?

Well, you do really need to catch up on The Bachelor.

No, inner voices! Don't do this to me again.

This is hopeless.

Well this is certainly terrible but there's a photo of a kitten, so...

So it's Feb. 15 and I haven't blogged all month. I would feel disappointed in myself but I'm too busy constantly working and feeding cats (yes, Gideon and I got another cat) and trying to convince Gideon that he looks really cute in colors that aren't black. It's exhausting, I tell you.

Maybe I shouldn't write anything at all if it's going to be this.

No, screw it.

This is what I'm writing today. I have a job I love that requires me to write and somehow it takes away my ability to write for fun in my free time. The crazy thing is I have free time. I have a lot of it on Saturday and Sunday. I just can't make myself sit down and write after I've spent the entire week writing and calling people and talking to people and explaining what deadlines are.

I've thought about writing five or six blog posts in advance on Saturday but that kind of takes away the magic of blogging. I don't want to share something I wrote because I forced myself to do it so that I won't end up feeling like a total failure at the end of the year when I look at my blog post count and realize it's less than 100.

Oh man, this is going downhill fast. I can't save this post. I pretty much threw it in the ocean without floaties and expected it to be exceptional. That was silly.

I know! I could throw in a photo of my new kitten. That'll make all this worthwhile.

Did that work? Lie to me if it didn't.

Yay! I'm a genius.