Ah, procrastination. A word every writer knows. Sometimes in multiple languages….
Today, we have a guest post on the topic from K Gorman, author of “The Star-Eater,” a short story in a for-charity 12-tale anthology: Twelve Worlds (science fiction and fantasy anthology)
Dealing with Procrastination
Procrastination. I’m sure it is familiar. A growing nag at the edge of the conscious that, naturally, we ignore. The trouble is that little nag was caused by ignoring something in the first place.
I did a lot of research on this post. A lot. In fact, I was aiming to have this post done sometime in May. The beginning of May, to be exact—after all the shenanigans with final exams were finished, but before I left for my vacation.
But then I had a bunch of work that gave me overtime. So I didn’t get it done. Poop.
So I decided to get it done on the plane. I’d have eight hours to kill, right? Well . . . turns out that it’s good to sleep during those eight hours to kill jet lag. And besides, there were movies. And the Rockies were very pretty. And I’d never seen Nunavut before. Or Greenland. So I only wrote a few paragraphs.
Double poop.
Well, there’s the trip back, right? The jet lag is reversed this time, so it’s better to stay awake! But they were playing Black Swan—and I’d been meaning to see it—so that took up an hour and a half. And food. And then there was Iceland. And . . . you get the idea. I actually did write a bunch, just not this.
So I’m probably not the best person to talk about fighting procrastination.
Here are my tips, anyway.
Don’t look it in the eye. Got a project that needs doing? Some despicable task? Sneak up on it. Don’t let yourself know that you’re going to do it for real. Come home (or wherever), whistle a guilt-free tune, and attack that thing like a… a… well, I don’t know. I never was one for violence. Maybe just dust it off and, in cleaning it off, notice how unfinished and desperate for attention it looks. And then—and this is the tricky part—decide you’ll do something about it right then. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Then*.
*This really only works if you have some time to kill. If you’re sneaking around and have a dentists appointment or a hot date, this is probably not a good idea.
Schedule it in for real. Another tricky one. This is mainly for the writers out there, myself included, that still can’t quite believe that this is a job. A bonafide, nine to five (or whatever block of time), working job. That baby (and by baby I mean that project novel that, by this time in its gestation, might as well be a two-year-old child. See what procrastination does?! Think of the children!) could have been written and published and you could have been making money!
So. Take a look at that schedule of yours. Plan out your time. Don’t forget to account for little things such as eating and sleeping. They are important. And, for heck’s sake, don’t schedule it in for breaks at work. Breaks are for exactly what the name implies. Breaks. Presumably, your other job (some people mistake it for a ‘real’ job, but that implies that writing is somehow not a ‘real’ job, and we don’t like that attitude here. We’re very professional.) is stressful, laborious, and mentally taxing. During breaks, you should chill. And probably eat.
So, plan a block of time. Make it a big block of time. Ten minutes is good for freewriting exercise, but just won’t cut it for serious writing. You can’t write a novel during that time, no matter how good you are. For some reason, one hour won’t do it for me. I have to have at least two. Otherwise I’m looking at the clock all the time and thinking about how I have less than an hour left.
Procrastinate something else. Since we’re so good at it, why not use it to our advantage? For writing, I usually find some schoolwork I should be doing. Usually something big, like a research paper—the bigger the better. Makes it easier. Then you simply procrastinate the one project by doing the other project. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? But trust me. It works.
Have a deadline. It has to be a real deadline, or else you’ll just ignore it. I find this is easier done when you have a large or important audience—not that your current audience isn’t important. But if, say, you have an essay for school due tomorrow and your teacher is far from lenient, you tend to get that done. Done last minute, probably, but done. And then you date it for a few days ago. While last-minute stuff isn’t ideal, it will work. So if you can get that done for your teacher, you can get it done for, say . . . your cover designer. Or your editor. Get some nice guilt going about how they are losing money because you haven’t finished the story/novel—I don’t care how. Got beta readers? Cool! A looming work schedule? Vacation? Awesome!
Whatever floats your boat. Got something that works? Do it. And maybe tell us about it in the comments so we can try it, too. Unless it’s really embarrassing—in which case I think we definitely need to hear it.
Visit K Gorman on the web or on Twitter.
I’ve been contemplating a post on time management for authors (I know, scintillating summer reading), but I thought I’d define a couple of book-promotion ideas first so I can reference them in the later post. The ideas are high and low level promotion techniques. I made those terms up myself, so no need to head to wikipedia.
