Making procrastination an artform

Why am I here? I shouldn’t be here. Not now. Not with two deadlines facing me – and both worth $$ to me. But instead of knuckling down, I’ve been caught up in administrivia all morning.

Yes, you have to do this stuff when you run a business (and a household), but it helps to actually earn money, rather than just let deadlines whoosh past.

Administrivia is just another word for procrastination. And I’ve made it an artform. Because it’s easier to fuddle around paying bills, and sorting emails, and stuff than it is to face the blank page. And hey, while I’m at it, I’ll put on a load of washing and clean the kitchen (gotta love the home office!).

I sometimes wonder why I write for a living, and for recreation. Clearly, I’m a sucker for punishment – or I just love playing with words.

So I’ve eliminated all my excuses so far. I’ve done the admin, done the washing, even paid for my ticket to the Byron Bay Writers Festival next month. Now…it’s almost midday. It must be time to face my copywriting jobs. Wish me luck!

elle x

Brewing the perfect novel

The draft is finished. 763,000 cups of tea later… the draft is finally finished.

And it’s a good thing I procrastinated over so many cups of tea, because now is the moment when all that ‘brewing’ experience pays off. Now I get to sit and wait, while my manuscript brews and my mind clears. Ready to transform this thing into a final work.

The Fragrant Leafsays brewing is simple and straightforward. (If only it was!) They even outline some simple steps to show how simple brewing is.

1. Start with fresh, cold good-tasting water - I have fresh, crisp good-sounding words. I must be on the right track.

2. Preheat the teapot - Hey, this story is positively smoking. It’s got action, it’s got pace, and characters that leap from the page. (Okay, so sometimes they have arthritic knees and it’s not so graceful. It’s still hot.)

3. Measure the appropriate amount of dry leaves - Dry leaves? Ah, yes. Those moments where we allow the reader to come up for air, and take a break from it all. I’m sure I’ve got an appropriate amount of those. 

4. Select the right water temperature - Still treading water in the shallow end of the writers’ pool. Time to dive in the deep end I think. 

5. Steep for the proper length of time - The crux of the whole brewing thing. Normally I’d let it steep for a month, but who can wait that long these days? Besides, I’m on a time budget here and I’m not getting any younger either. I’m thinking a week. One week. Seven days. And it’s liberating not to think about my novel every spare second. And it kind of leaves me lost at the same time. What did I think about before I started writing this thing? 

Never mind. A week it is. I haven’t looked at it since Friday, so that means tomorrow my week is up. Oh no, that went so fast. I can feel the tension rising already. 

Urgh! 

I think I’d better go make a cup of tea. 

Sash.

Pokemon addiction

WARNING – If you are a writer, do not pick up this game. EVER.

I have just wasted the best part of several hours (I won’t tell you how many – I’m too embarrassed) ‘evolving’ (I didn’t even know what that meant in relation to this game this morning) a giant bird creature for my five year old. The worst part was, I was supposed to be editing. The other worst part was, I kept telling myself I was doing it for the five year old. The next worst thing is, I know she’ll have forgotten she asked me to do it by this afternoon, won’t care that I have, and I will have done zilch editing.

Does it really matter if the giant bird creature evolves and gets his three pronged crown thingy? No. 

Readers… this has been a sad, sad day for the procrastinator I thought I’d managed to get rid of. 

Sash

too busy to write…

Writing – or the avoidance of it – is a full-time activity. I think wannabe (ahem, let’s be kind to ourselves and call it ’struggling’) writers have really clean houses, and lots of things ticked off their list every day – except the ‘writing’ one. Which after a while, we don’t bother adding to the list because, well, avoidance has moved quietly into denial.

And denial is evil. It’s the voice in your head that whispers (well, shouting would be too obvious, wouldn’t it):

• You have more important things to do. Yes, a tidy house is important. Don’t we all want that on our headstones? “She kept a tidy home. May she RIP (because she needs it).”
• Your client/boss has an emergency job that has to be done. yesterday. And you’ve forgotten that lovely response: “Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part”
• Your kids/husband/mother/great aunt dot needs attention
• Your dog needs to be walked. Your cat needs a kidney transplant
• The shopping has to be done or we’ll starve. Because nobody else in the house can grocery shop like you
• It’s christmas. You need to deck the halls, spend ridiculous amounts of money on things no-one wants or, if they do, will be broken by New Year, and you need to buy tons of food for the big Christmas feast and the long holiday (um, the shops only close for Christmas…)
• You have no RIGHT to spent quality time on you. What do you think this is? YOUR life?

I’m sure you’ve got a few to add to the list… you’re welcome! We need to out these crazy thoughts so we can do something about it.

Clearly, I’m way too busy to write. Which is why I did. Go grrrrl!!

ciao

Elle

procrastination is the thief of time

Take the test and find out if you’re a true procrastinator.

New Scientist’s Dec 15 issue (I’m catching up on my reading now that the Christmas madness has passed), has a quiz to find out just how bad a procrastinator you really are. I was surprised to find I am only an ‘average dawdler’. Yay! The year is looking up already. (Sorry, you’ll have to buy the mag to do the quiz, but the site’s worth checking out if you need some interesting stories to base your own work on.) 

One suggestion for dealing with procrastination is to have somebody else to push you into action. So for all you fellow procrastinators – go! stop reading this and write something.

Sash.

T-Rex butts: the story of why I’m not writing (yet)

I’ve decided that this year I will give myself a first draft of my novel for Christmas, but am I even nearly there yet? No. I’m too damn tired to finish writing it. I have managed to get the coughing, spluttering children off to school for the first time in what seems like weeks. 

My plan for the day is to stay home, finish some copywriting (cause somebody will pay me for that), finish my homework for the writing course I signed up for, and at some stage hopefully flop onto the bed if I feel like it. Oh, and I’ll have to squeeze in some shopping as well, because every time I go to do it one of the kids starts fading and I have to rush them home and we, therefore, have no food.

Right now though I’m going to finish building a dinosaur for my son (whoever thought giving a seven year old a paper art dinosaur was a good idea needs a flogging). I stayed up till midnight trying to get it done (as I’m so used to not sleeping, I now can’t sleep), but gave up at the tail. It did cross my mind that I could have been writing, but with my hand stuck up a paper T-Rex’s butt it wasn’t all that convenient.

However, now is the moment. It’s time to write. The smell of bleach is wafting through the house (yes Elle, I took your advice and got a cleaner) and I’m now ready to write.

Ah dammit – the cleaner. Now I have them and us guilt. I can’t write… I have real work to do. 

Sash