What Happens When Your Guilty Pleasure Becomes Your Day Job?

There was a time—ah, the golden days—when my favorite guilty pleasure was sneaking onto social media in the middle of writing. I’d be knee-deep in a tense chapter, or elbow-deep in a horrifyingly overcomplicated spreadsheet, and I'd whisper to myself: “Just five minutes... you’ve earned it.”

Five minutes would turn into thirty, naturally. Maybe forty. I’d scroll, like, laugh at memes involving dogs in hats, argue with someone over the correct ranking of Halloween candy (Reese’s is #1, don’t @ me), and maybe even post a selfie if I was feeling wild.

Back then, social media was my oasis. My little hideaway of chaos and dopamine and questionable life choices. A snack for the brain. A tiny vacation.

But somewhere along the way, the snack became the meal.

One day I woke up and social media was no longer my escape. It was on my to-do list. My to-do list! Right there, in between “write 1,000 words” and “don’t forget to eat something green.”

The thing is, if you’re an author now—traditionally published or indie—you’re expected to have a platform. A following. A presence. (And no, not the ghostly kind I prefer to write about in my cozy mysteries.) Apparently, these days, if a tree falls in the forest and doesn’t post it on Instagram, it didn’t really fall.

So now, instead of sneaking onto social media like a kid grabbing an extra cookie, I’m setting alarms to remind myself to post on social media. Every. Single. Day.

Gone are the carefree days of cat videos and sarcastic tweets. Now I’m planning content calendars, checking analytics, and wondering if I should learn TikTok dances (I shouldn’t).

Which leads to the most pressing question of all:
If social media is now work… where do I go to procrastinate?!

I can’t use it as a reward anymore. It’s like telling yourself you’ll treat yourself to doing the dishes after doing the laundry. That’s not a treat. That’s a trap.

I tried taking a break by organizing the junk drawer. That somehow turned into building a three-level spice rack and labeling all my batteries. I tried watching TV, but I spent the whole time analyzing the plot arc like a writing professor. I tried going outside, but there were bugs and… you know. Nature.

So now I’m in a weird limbo, where I need a guilty pleasure to replace the guilty pleasure that got promoted to middle management in my career. I suppose I could take up knitting badly. Or adopt a new animal for every time I finish a book (hello, papillon #6). Maybe I’ll take dramatic naps where I faint onto the couch like an 1800s heroine.

Or maybe—hear me out—I’ll write blog posts about it and call that “marketing,” and voila! Still working, but it feels like playing.

So to all my fellow authors, creatives, and anyone whose escape turned into a job:
You’re not alone. Let’s bring back the guilt-free guilty pleasure. Or at least figure out where it went when we weren't looking.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go make a TikTok about this while pretending it’s relaxing.

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