Procrastination

Procrastination by Iris Carden

If you follow writers on social media, you’ll see lots of posts about great ideas not getting written, either because they weren’t written down and forgotten, or because the writer spent so much time doing other things  (such as checking on other writers’ posts on social media) instead of writing.

I confess to being a procrastinator.  I get distracted by social media, books, iPad games, television, pets being cute or annoying, etc.

Like many other writers, I get anxious: What if no-one reads what I write? What if people do read it and don’t like it? Who am I to call myself and author anyway? 

In lots of ways, it was easier writing eight to ten news stories a day as a journalist, or writing a sermon when I was working in ministry.  In those roles, I was a professional, employed to do a specific job. Writing fiction, is something I decided to do myself, and not since doing creative writing as part of my first degree (which is pretty ancient now) has anyone assessed my ability at that. No-one appointed me, or said I was good enough to do this.  I’ve just done it. Since I’m really not well enough to have the energy for traditional publication, I’m self published, so there’s no other authority to give me the job, to assess whether I am doing it properly. 

For me, the biggest thing that will get me to stop procrastinating and start being productive is a deadline.  I’ve been writing for years, but I’m producing far more since starting this blog and setting myself a regular deadline to publish daily. 

The deadline means I will write, no matter how much I procrastinate, and having a deadline for a chapter of my work in progress each week also means the books I keep thinking about writing will eventually be written. (Now, if they go on to be edited and published is another matter.)

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