Delaying Tactics

My Books
My Books

Fortunately, it’s only gloomy outside–a grey, foggy, damp, cold January day. Inside, it’s cozy and I’m having fun looking at photos for possible book covers, and playing with the collage function in Adobe Photoshop to create a new cover photo for my Facebook author page (see photo to the right). And yes, I know I should be writing.

Two weeks ago norovirus came to visit, so a lot of writing did not get done. Drinking gingerale, eating crackers, sleeping–yes.  Writing–no. And this week, I caught up on a project that got behind while I was sick. Could I have done more of my joywriting? Of course, but I’m an expert at delaying tactics, and it’s amazing how the days can fly by.

And this is not something new. I thought I’d look for a blog to share about procrastination for any fellow sufferers out there, and went to my favourite writing blogger, Kristi Holl, for inspiration. Well, this is embarrassing. Here’s the link to Kristi Holl’s blog on procrastination, where you will see me bemoaning this same problem last April, and for the same reason: I finally have more time to write. On the plus side, I did actually write three books last summer: two non-fiction for self-publishing and another for a contract. And I finished editing five short stories, and, with a friend, produced a short story anthology for boys, with the layout and publishing side being all my responsibility. But I clearly did my share of moaning before the production of all these words got underway.

So, I declare this year’s moaning period is over. New start today. Onward!

Hope you have a great writerly week ahead!

 

The Lure of Research

I have discovered an extremely effective delaying tactic–research.  As long as I’m reading about the work my character will be doing and the setting he’ll be doing it in, it’s still writing time. Right? I’m making progress on my story. Right?

Wrong.

I love opening my resource book and scribbling notes from it in my journal, or scribbling in the margin if the book is mine. I print articles and file them in cheerful folders for highlighting and more margin scribbling later. And I learn so much, too!

Did you know that a medieval scribe might have to sharpen his or her quills sixty times during a day’s work? (Yes there were female scribes and illuminators, too.) Did you know that pages in today’s books are rectangular because the parchment that was used in most of the pre-Gutenberg books was cut that way because of the shape of the animal’s skin from which the pages were made?

All very useful information, but it’s not helping my story get written. Why the procrastination? Simple answer: because I know how hard the writing will be. I know that what’s ahead will be a slow and often dissatisfying process, and yeah, I find launching a new project scary, too. What a wuss!

I like to think of myself as a writer, so enough whining, reflection, justification, procrastination, whatever you want to call it. Time to ‘writer-up’ and get to work. I have an appointment with my treadmill desk this afternoon. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

Do you procrastinate? What lures you away from the blank page? What helps you get the writing done?

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