Things I Do While Procrastinating About Writing...

In the midst of a writing procrastination paralysis...! I don't get it - yesterday I was on a perfect prose roll, now today it's like my mind has frozen up, my ink has all dried up, my ability to string words together has skidded to a halt! 

All because I didn't write right away today - I put it off, I got sidetracked, I waited -  then the procrastination set in. (It's sneaky like that).

Damn.

Symptoms of this procrastination include: (You may recognise some of these...)

-Staring blankly out a window - on and off - all day...

 

-Going bigtime domestic (doing dishes and all kinds of previously-shunned housework, tidying up, de-cluttering workspace, trying to feng-shui practically everything in an attempt to re-order my mind...)

-Trying to douse my verbal mind with visuals - ie. watching copious amounts of TV

-Spending inordinate amounts of time on social networking sites...

-Biting my nails furiously (ouch)

-Sighing miserably every few hours

-Refusing all books (can't bear to look at the printed word - makes me feel more guilty)

-Googling excessively

-Staring blankly at a new Word document

-Having a DVD-box-set-athon  (helps to quiet my screaming mind)

-Editing music playlists and making new ones

-Moping

-Snapping at passers-by

-Experimenting with vegetating

-Buying new notebooks:

-Staring blankly into the ether 

-Observing minute everyday detail, like dust motes settling onto furniture and construing it into some existential significance...

-Thinking, thinking, thinking, rifling and contemplating - but no writing:

 












-Searching for pens

-Doodling over said new notebooks with found pens

-Talking about writing: (the worst one)

 










-And all the while, dying a little inside.

***
Sound familiar anyone??

Oh. Oh. Oh.

It's like Waiting for Godot - waiting for that one moment of inspiration, that timely hour when it will be right to write. 

I'm sure you've all experienced it, this procrastination when it comes to writing. Not a block per se, but a putting off, a feeling that comes from that demon doubt and all the shadows that go with it - namely, the quest for perfection.

It will pass yes. Soon I'll be navigating my way through firing synapses and brainstorms of words coming so fast at me that I won't have time to write them all down and I'll be rolling around in words until my fingers get inky and all of this crippling, debilitating waiting will be a ghost, a faint memory, a faint footnote to the bigger picture, behind me, and in front of me - all the bright lights of verbosity.

But for now, it's miserable. (And writing about it helps :) A step to knocking the progress of  procrastination:

Thank you for reading,


~ Siobhán