Bad Writing Habits (what are yours?)

I know personally that I have bad writing habits, one of the most prominent probably being the overuse of dashes - they're so addictive!
(See what I did there? )

But what are your bad writing habits, and what do you try and do to overcome them?

Not writing.
To fix it, I smash my forehead into the desk every time I get distracted.

going on YWS and Facebook when I mean to be writing. Also, I have a tendency to edit-as-I-go.

I write very long sentences filled with commas, I dont really do anything to stop myself, I just clean it up when I am finished.

Using 'said' far too much, I struggle with dialogue :/

Also, getting really excited about an idea and then running out of steam after the first few chapters. I get bored and end up never going back to it.

Not writing a story, only a string of scenes that might be connected.

My worst habit is fixating on description and never on action, at least when I write prose. When it comes to writing poetry, the worst habit I have is using weird, unnecessary extras like dashes, no caps, and parentheticals.

Spoiler

oh, and cats

My problem is that my characters tend to act a bit OOC (out of character) at certain times; I place in characters and areas that aren't really necessary to the plot, and I have no idea what to do with them; All my comedy writings seem to have death present somewhere; and I never really write that much

I have many, but these must be my worst:

1. Also overuse of dashes. I totally agree—they are just so addictive!

2. Having an elaborate dream or idea and simply starting out with it without planning ahead. At all.

3. Neglecting character development and action at the same time and simply drifting around in an endless sea of character interactions.

Ah, confession made!

Starting off good... then never finishing, ever.

Though I have this one book I'm writing that I'm determined to finish!

Wanting to get to the good part of a story and skipping all detail to get there. Happened so many times.....

I have 3!

- Writing while YWS chat is up. I pretty much can only write in word wars now if I'm not very inspired - I think it's because I have a lot of time.

- Having solitaire open while I write too

- Writing 100 words on a new day for the end of the chapter because I get so exhausted after finishing a chapter even if I've barely written anything for some reason. xD

Ooh, using way too much punctuation.
I use this "..." too much. And I use these babies "," too much as well.

Another might be the fact that I always lose steam while writing a book, just because the story's not progressing. Or because I just lose interest.

(I'm a very lazy person by nature, and I'm trying to overcome that. )

barefootrunner wrote:I have many, but these must be my worst:

1. Also overuse of dashes. I totally agree—they are just so addictive!

2. Having an elaborate dream or idea and simply starting out with it without planning ahead. At all.

3. Neglecting character development and action at the same time and simply drifting around in an endless sea of character interactions.

Ah, confession made!

Two is definitely a habit of mine.

My excessive us of ";" or "," or "..." constantly! I feel the serious need to write overly long sentences (thus I need the punctuation to break it up) or I write tiny sentences. If I go for middle ground I feel the sentence just looks bland and I end up rewriting it until it fits into the 'overly long and overly punctuated' category or the 'practically three words and tiny' category.
I'm also not so great with dialogue, I feel the need to put 'Colin said' or 'Laura shouted' or whatever after anything that is spoken by a character. I've started trying to combat this by having my narrator simply comment on what is spoken or by not putting anything after a piece of dialogue if I have already indicated the pattern of speech between characters...