Curse of the Procrastination Bug
Sometimes I think all artists are born with this curse. Or perhaps we, as procrastinators, are drawn toward interests that are known to be sympathetic. If I wasn’t so bad about putting things off, would that mean I would write more, or would it mean I’d find something else to do with all my free time? I’ve often wondered these things. If you haven’t yet, you probably will at some point too.
The fact of the matter is, the answer doesn’t really matter at all? This is who I am and I rather like that person. So we learn to deal with our inadequacies instead. The internet, other than the devil-sent curse of any procrastinator, has thousands of positive tips for this little ailment. I thought I’d share some of the ones that work for me.
1. Minimum word counts – I do this like most other writers, but I’m not quite as brutal to myself as many seem to be. I think when you do sit down to write you need to have some idea of how much you want to get down. I try to get at least 700 words typed up whenever write. I’m also not big on the whole “you HAVE to write EVERY day” thing. If that works for you, rock it, but it rarely does for me. If you write 900 page books you may eventually HAVE to write every day, but most probably don’t.
2. Find a consistent time – Schedule a time block you can write in if you choose to. I’m a bit of a night owl, so my time is usually 10PM-12AM. If I want to write I know I can, since I’m not usually doing anything else. I have to set time aside to get anything else done, so why not writing?
3. Don’t read what you write – Early on I always read what I did for the day, then would get stuck into edit mode for days. There’s always time to edit later, just leave it alone! Forward, friends, move forward!
4. Don’t worry about names – Changing a characters name, even a main character, is easy to do in editing. If you can’t think of a cool name, just give him or her a crappy one and worry about it later. The same goes with places too! If you use Microsoft Word, the find/replace feature is quite nice for this.
I think I’ll stop there for now, I’m already thinking this will need a continuation post some time later! There are so many good ways to get around procrastination. Feel free to add some of your own to the comments!
Tags: writing technique
