Procrastination as a Fine Art

by Janis Patterson

I spend waaaay too much time online. First, there's email to check, just to make sure there's nothing that has to be attended to, as everyone knows email is the best way to contact me. Then there's my twice-daily check of my sales stats - lately that has been a masochistic exercise in depression, to say the least! Of course, there's research to be done, for I simply have to know the depth of a stylish hem flounce in 1816 or the exact caliber of a Broomhandle Mauser... All legitimate reasons, all time-consuming, and if I would just stop there I would be all right.

Unfortunately, minutes spent online are far too much like potato chips or jelly beans - far too easy to overindulge in. I promise myself just one quick look on Facebook or Twitter, just long enough to do a little promo and do a fast check to see what my friends are doing... then sometimes at least an hour later I'll notice the clock and scream Noooo! It can't have been thaaat long!

Even more unfortunately (from a time sense only, as I am very happy), I have a husband and a home and an extended family to look after. Clothes must be washed, the kitchen cleaned, meals cooked, dust bunnies rearranged, errands run... the minutiae of daily living. Unlike the internet, each of these makes a perfect excuse not to write. I won't struggle with this chapter right now, especially since (insert household chore of choice here) has to be done.

Back when I was single my late mother used to swear she could tell how my writing was going by looking at my kitchen. If it was a disaster area almost fit for condemnation she knew the new book was going well. When she came over to find me cleaning the gasket of my dishwasher with a cotton swab and alcohol for the third day in a row, she would suggest that I start checking the want ads for a real job.

Make no mistake - I am a professional writer. Writing is my job. When I don't write I don't get paid. (Sometimes even when I do write I don't get paid, but that's another rant for another blog.) And I do my best to treat my writing just like I would an office job - dedication, responsibility, reasonable hours, decent output, respect for my craft.

Unexpected exigencies aside, I try to ration the lunches with girlfriends (though some still cannot understand why since I work at home - and therefore obviously don't have a 'real' job - I can't just drop everything and go run and play at any time) and other social/political necessities. I spend very little time at the store, meaning primarily the grocery store, as I dislike shopping and am known for wearing clothes until they are old enough to vote. There is one exception to this - when my dear friend from Peru comes up once or twice a year for a visit we spend a great deal of time shopping, as for her it is almost a religious experience. So much so that some clerks remember us from one excursion to the next!

Sometimes looking at my life I wonder that I get anything done, let alone why I put myself through such hard work and dedication and mental gymnastics for such a (recently, at least) insultingly paltry return. (Something really must be done about falling book sales!) It took me a long time, but I finally figured it out...

I can't do anything else. There are times I hate writing, there are times I vow never to write anything but a grocery list again, there are times I really wish the characters in my head would just SHUT UP... but there are more times I glory in the act of creation, feel delight that something works out swimmingly when I had feared it would take days of effort to make the situation work, joy that my characters have morphed into real, believable - albeit incorporeal - people with minds of their own...

In other words, I love writing. I can't imagine ever spending my life doing anything else. No matter how creative I can be in avoiding doing it!

Games, Calories and Procrastination

by Janis Patterson

Whoever put games like Solitaire (Spider or Regular) and Free Cell on computers has a lot to answer for.

Now that’s a pretty harsh statement, but any writer can identify with it. You have a deadline. You have a tangled sentence, or a clunky paragraph, or a bit of action that just doesn’t ring true. You need to apply some heavy-duty brain power to it, but your mind won’t cooperate. Perhaps a bit of mindless hand eye action will aid in sharpening your concentration. Or maybe it’s a scene you really don’t want to write for whatever reason or it is so intense you need a break… a quick game of Solitaire wouldn’t hurt and it will give you a breathing space…

We’ve all done it, and before you know it, half an hour or even an hour has gone by, you’ve barely thought about your writing but you have upped your win percentage to 63%. Worse yet, you feel proud about it!

Let’s face it – writing is hard work. Even bad writing can be hard work. If the energy we put into writing burned calories (and WHY doesn’t it?) we would all be size 0 wraiths. We do need breaks occasionally just from the intensity of our stories and a quick game of (electronic) cards can be just the relief we need.

The key word in the sentence above is ‘game,’ which is most definitely singular. Games, unfortunately, are like potato chips. Taking just one is simply impossible. But, you say, all you need is self discipline. True, but how many of us have that kind of discipline? You’ve been working steadily for an hour or two, the words are tangled in an impenetrable Gordian knot, you have a deadline looming and your brain is fried mush. Sometimes discipline just isn’t enough – or, to use a more homely and telling comparison, it’s like putting a great big bowl of chocolate in front of a starving dieter. Surely just one piece… and before you know it the entire bowl is gone and you are rampaging through the kitchen looking for more.

Perhaps all of you have more self control than I; you probably do – both for writing and for chocolate. You could hardly have less. Still, we can but do our best, and that includes ignoring the siren call of mindless games… and chocolate.

Now I must go back to work, but the situation I have my characters in is daunting and must be straightened out. Maybe just one game before I start, just to clear my mind. Besides, it’s bothering me that that I dropped a point on my win percentage yesterday and I know that worrying about it will affect my writing…

Whoever put games like Solitaire (Spider or Regular) and Free Cell on computers should die!

Writer, Interrupted

by Janis Patterson

Our family has always been keepers. Not hoarders, but keepers. Things that are parts of our family history. Things that might be useful someday. Or simply, things that are simply too good to get rid of. That’s how we ended up with a garage full of stuff. And when I say full, I mean full! This oversized two car garage was packed so tightly we couldn’t have fitted an anorexic mouse in there.

Over the years periodically we’d decide to do something about it. We had plans to make it half into an organized storage facility with shelves and steel pallets and half into a workshop (I call it a ‘Boom Room’) for The Husband. We’d make a concentrated but short-lived attempt to get it cleaned out. The local animal-benefit charity shop loved us, because with every attempt they got a nice haul of stuff. But then other things – trips, rocket meets, gun shows, writer’s meetings, that sort of thing – got in the way and the garage would once again slip into oblivion on our radar.

Then not too long ago we realized how long we had been talking about doing the garage and, in a moment of bravado, booked the contractor to arrive on a certain date. Then we looked at the garage and ALL THAT STUFF! Gulp.

Well, there was no way we could sort through all those boxes and bags and suitcases in time to have the garage cleared before the contractor and his crew showed up, so we did the next best thing. We rented a storage room – a rather large storage room – on the edge of town and have been frantically moving things there willy-nilly for the last ten days. We? The Husband goes to his job Monday through Friday and can only work on the weekend, leaving guess who to haul stuff around during the week. Of course, I have a job too – I write, you know – but in the light of the present emergency my computer is getting a nice rest. I’m not. Sometimes life just gets in the way.

My mother did not raise me to be a stevedore, but necessity drives, so during the week I load up my SUV (which seems to be rather ashamed to be carrying such a shabby cargo), drive to the storage unit, unload, return and repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

Did I tell you I’ve discovered one of the great secrets of the universe? Boxes breed. They really do. After a day of moving I swear there are more boxes in the garage than there were when I started. Sigh.

It doesn’t help that we are dealing with four households – mine, The Husband’s, my late parents’ and what my mother had from her mother’s house. You can name almost anything and we have at least three of them. To complicate matters, my late mother was the family historian who kept all kinds of family memorabilia from photographs to a pump head to plow harrows to an ancient scythe (I’m fixed for costume parties from now on!) to an 1830 blanket box which strongly resembles a recently dug up coffin. We have furniture that came to Texas in a covered wagon in the 1840s and a settee and two chairs that date from my great-uncle’s first term as a State Legislator back in the twenties. I think we are the only house on the block to have our own anvil.

Not all was lost during this last weekend, though. The Husband and I took an entire pick-up load of stuff to the charity shop. And there is method in our madness in carrying stuff away to storage. That way we ensure that only things we wish to keep will come back to the house… and the charity shop is conveniently located between home and the storage facility!

I may not be getting much writing done, but it is a good feeling to know that our dreams of the garage are actually coming true and that our discards are benefiting the scores of homeless animals who so desperately need help. It’s also sad in a way, because I am getting rid of things I would rather not, but have no need of nor space for. There are some things I’m keeping, though, like the anvil. It might be useful someday.

Are You a Procrastinator?

Well, I can be. Never with work, of course…well, hardly ever. But sometimes, when the Muse isn’t pounding down my door with ideas for stories, blogs, articles, etc, I do find it easy to be distracted when I’m sitting at my computer. It’s not just a quick game of Mahjong or Free Cell any more. There are many interesting sites on the web – if you’re interested in tennis, skiing, baseball, horses, flying, cooking – you name it, there’s a site you can find with all kinds of info and some have training videos available – fifteen minutes have disappeared in a blink while you learned how to follow through on your golf swing!

And, of course, those sites often have links to their Facebook page, Twitter, YahooGroups discussion groups. Before you know it, a quick little glance at how to make angel food cake has you signed up for online cooking lessons and you’re fifteen posts into a discussion on the merits of butter cream versus cream cheese frosting.

It’s fine to say, just apply willpower and get to work on that review you’ve promised, the blog that’s waiting to be posted, the first three chapters you told your crit partner you’d have to her last week. Then that email alarm sounds and you see someone has said the only real frosting for a cake is their grandmother’s seven-minute frosting. How can you not look at that recipe?

Here are a couple of suggestions on how to work through the procrastination.

1 – I can write whatever I want on the assignment hanging over my head. I can write the love scene I know is coming up in my WIP, even if my characters aren’t there yet, or the beginning of an article on squirrels or the first paragraph of my column. It doesn’t have to be perfect; it doesn’t even have to be something I’ll end up sending out, but it does get me writing.

2 – I can online browse at a specific time, but not before. That can be tough because you can find yourself watching the time.

3 – This one is a bit of an oddity, but it can work. Tell yourself you’re NOT allowed to write until a specific time. By the time the designated hour arrives, say 7:37 pm, you could be chomping at the bit to get those ideas onto your hard drive.

So…what gets your fingers moving when you’re procrastinating?

Libby McKinmer
Romance with an edge
www.libbymckinmer.com
libby@libbymckinmer.com
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