Procrastination: Ways to help

As someone starting on this beautiful adventure of learning the craft of a wordsmith and having dreams of becoming a writer, procrastination has hurt me the most in doing what my heart knows is the right path to follow. There is no end to the types of things I have used to stop myself from writing. From saying the family must come first, the bills arrive. First, I must take care of fill-in-the-blank before I start writing; we know that is all just plain bullshit. I am scared. I don’t want to be told, “you suck.” I want my work to be loved – or at least liked – by people other than close family members and friends. I mean, who wants to be rejected. About anything. And yet – as writers – that is a constant thing we have to fight. Rejection of your story means rejection of you – at least in the eyes of the writer, so that makes it hard to start writing. And then you look at statistics in which not very many writers make money at writing. They still work “real jobs” (as my mom said) to support the family and pay the bills.

Even those that have been able to get the family on board with it and willing to give one the space and time to write, then the day starts, and before you sit down to write; you get that cup of coffee, finish watching the morning news, pet the dogs, feed the cats, water the yard, throw the dog the ball and -- Oh, crap. I need to get that writing project done. But my 2nd cup of coffee is gone, so I need to raid the fridge and grab a soda and then wander down the hall set the air conditioner to the right temp as it is mid-July and 90 plus degrees right now. Getting further down the entrance into the back bedroom, we turned into an office, booted up the computer (finally), read a chapter out of the “how-to-create-beautiful settings” book I just picked up. Check the emails, read the tweets of the orange goblin, watch a video on “procrastination” (!), and …... Ah hell!

We all do it! Is there a way to stop it? YES! But it takes self-discipline. That’s right. You have to take the initiative and sit down and write. Something. Anything. Don’t even matter if it makes any sense in the end, just as long as you sit down. And write. And write. And write. That is the only way to stop it. Even in using the tools of our trade – researching the next project is important, but did that cat snowboarding have anything to do with whatever you are supposed to be writing about? It can become some procrastinator’s play yard. So, one thing that I do is turn off my connection to the internet when I am serious about writing. I have a mainframe PC with a VOIP phone system that my “day job” requires me to work from home, but while the phone is hardwired to our internet, the PC is hooked up in my office wirelessly. I can turn it off when I want to. I also put my cell phone on airplane mode to still stream my favorite music but will not be bugged by notifications of news, emails, phone calls, or skydiving cats. A second thing I did to help myself stop procrastinating was I created a “writing work” calendar – and followed that thing as if it were my second job. I set the days and hours I will use for writing and my “day job.” Then, it gets posted on both refrigerators in print so that every one of my family knows when they can bug me when I am in my office (yeah, they can upset my bill-paying job all they want –don’t mess with momma when she’s writing!). If I want to accomplish what I want to achieve, that is the only way it will happen.

“But Johnny scrapped his knee, and only mommy’s kiss could make it better, and I just couldn’t write after that,” Yeah, yeah, I hear him too. If it’s just a scrap, he will survive without the kiss. The word emergency (as defined by https://www.merriam-webster.com) is an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action. An emergency does include burning, flooding, or structurally falling apart. The other adult in the household should help keep such “emergencies” (“MOM! Davey shaved the cat again!!” ARGH) away while I am trying to write. Turn that music up louder so I can’t hear the kids raging around and block the pet door in the office so the dogs can’t use it as part of their raceway.

Another procrastinating behavior that hurts us writers is the perfectionism syndrome. This procrastinating technique is where one cannot write for more than a paragraph or – in some cases - a sentence or even a word - without correcting any spelling, grammar punctuation errors. (The last sentence took me ten times to rewrite before I moved to this one!) It is hard to do because you know how you want it to be, and seeing it come out wrong the first time is, well, it’s just unacceptable! I have to permit myself (sometimes even in writing! Ha-ha!) to write and not let any of the mistakes get me until I get to the end of the chapter (or essay for a client) before going back to correcting anything. Letting it all out works better because I can then get out what I want to say – and probably more as I find as the juices flow, more comes to mind and flows onto the paper without having to think about it anymore.

To me, what writing is all about—is getting the words down on paper so that they can be read and (hopefully) admired by others in the world. The most significant part of doing that is stopping procrastinating and just starting writing. Not many of us will ever reach the status of an extraordinarily prolific writer such as Stephen King, but if we all can do some of what he does – sit down and write. Every day. Then maybe, just maybe, we will start to hone our skills and use this excellent craft of wordsmithing to create stories that entertain and enlighten people.