PROCRASTINATING PROGRESS



Ok, so you know the rules: no internet, no calls, no texts, no distractions of any kind until you’ve done some writing – and not just a few sentences, a paragraph or a page – but some serious progress.

Yet every now and then one of those days comes along when you just can’t help yourself. You have to check your bank balance – has that money you’re expecting arrived in your account yet? You have to check your email, after all someone, a friend, a relative, your dearest absent loved one, could have sent you an urgent message.

You have another coffee – larger, stronger, ‘cos you really do want to get through this detour you seem to have taken – you’re not totally off plan yet – this can be seen as a warm up to the writing, a connecting – if you like – to the wider world; why, it’s just a ‘get your creative juices going’ exercise.

By now you really are delusional.

So, in for a penny, in for a pound as they say, you might as well check how many page views you got yesterday – like you didn’t do this at 11.59pm last night. Well, mmm...bit of a bummer there but you’ve been in worse places.           

Your, by now, despairing eye spots an article on procrastination in someone’s blog. And you’re back in the zone. You want to write so badly, it’s almost physical, and you know desperate measures are needed. You hit the link, and wow! There’s nothing you’ve not heard before but somehow it strikes a chord. You are so ready to write. 

All you need to do is close down the internet, open the file and get on with editing the last chapter of your life’s work. However, at this point your eye catches another link to a second article on how to overcome this enemy that has you on your knees. You can't resist and click again. This time it works! You don’t even finish the article and in two ticks you’re off line and your fingers are on fire.

Two and a half hours later you’ve finished.

So thank you, guys, your words were just what I needed. All those bloggers (see below for links) whose encouraging advice and guidance helps to keep me on task - you have my lasting appreciation. 

Today’s Haiku

COFFEE SHOP

She sips the froth first
Licking the chocolate heart.
She’s late – doesn’t care.


Check out a book of short stories called Roads Taken by M. Joaquim at the Kindle Store, ebook only. It’s a great little book.

Here is are the links to the procrastination articles:

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/09/21/the-science-of-procrastination/

http://99u.com/articles/7051/cant-start-wont-start-tricks-for-overcoming-procrastination


Here are a couple of websites about writing whose advice helps me in my writing;


And if you haven’t read Stephen King’s book ‘On Writing’, I would suggest you do.

For all book lovers out there, I wish you good reading and for those of you who write, good writing.

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