I Should be Writing

Woke up nice and early today and thought I'd get on with some writing before breakfast.

First though I had to check my emails... then just a quick look at Twitter... while I'm at it I'd best check to see if there are any comments on the blog. Oh look, it's mid-morning already and not even had breakfast yet. Getting a bit stressed now as I've wasted half the morning.

Breakfast eaten and several cups of coffee drunk so it's time to get back to start writing. But first I need to do a quick bit of online research. Oh it's lunchtime and now I'm really stressing, that's half the day gone and zero words written. I'll have lunch and then start all fresh and raring to go this afternoon.

The laptop's fired up after an extended lunch break and I'm good to go. I do a few neck rolls in preparation to do battle with the wip. But it's a bit difficult to concentrate with all that washing up sitting there from lunchtime. Perhaps I'd better do that first then I can write without being distracted...

And so the day goes on with one excuse for not writing after another.

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating just a teeny tiny bit, but does any of this sound familiar? Why do we spend hours carrying out displacement activities to avoid doing the one thing that we really enjoy?

Is it fear? Either fear of failing and having your baby rejected by all those agents and publishers. Or fear of success and having your baby out in the big wide world without you there to protect it? Or are you looking for perfection and don't think anything you write will ever be good enough?

By the way, it's funny how a deadline can stop you procrastinating. The fear of what will happen if you don't deliver your manuscript or article on time is pretty damned scary!

Brian Clark looks at the different types of fear and procrastination in The Nasty Four-Letter Word That Keeps You From Writing and below are a few of his tips:

• Realise that every time you fail, you’ve become a better writer.
• Recognize that each failure brings you one step closer to success.
• Remember, you’ll never please everyone. You only have to find and please your audience.
• No one will ever be perfect, so let it go.
• Action beats inaction every time.
• Accomplishing anything feels better than accomplishing nothing.
• What’s the worse that could happen? Often, it’s not really all that bad.

So, how about you? Do you find yourself procrastinating when you should be writing and do you have any tips to cope with it?