Writer’s Procrastination
By Claudette
You’re in a slump. You can’t write. You try, but no matter what nothing (good) comes out! You look for the answer and you find writers block. So it must be that right? NO!
Why don’t we go for the first thing everyone asks, what is writers block? NOTHING! People seem to think it actually exists but I disagree, it doesn’t. I’ll explain to you what writers procrastination is, though. Writers procrastination is my take on writers block. I’ve noticed a common pattern among writers, we procrastinate! Which is a horrible thing to do. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Stop it! But I’m sure a good number of us are accused of this crime, its such a terrible thing…
Before I get too far into this, I want to take a moment and say what I do think about writers block. I think it is a lack of ideas and/or knowledge on the topic you wish to write about, thus creating a blockage because you have nothing to say.
Beyond that, I’m not sure there’s anything else but procrastination. You’re too scared to start writing because you’ll think it sucks. You don’t want to write it because you want more research (but you’ve been researching for 2 weeks now, and you’ll looking things up like ‘metal buttons’ because you’re distracting yourself from writing) Or you could be sitting in a chat room talking about how badly you need to write this story/chapter/poem/novel but can’t get your mind around doing it. Admit it, we’ve all done it before. But how do we fix it?
First: Get rid of all distractions. Shut off AIM, close the chats, close the forums (I’m bad with that one) and put the phone in a box. After that, set a goal. Maybe you have to write for 30 minutes? 5,000 words? Or more abstract, “write the beginning.” But set a goal for yourself so that way you have purpose. And if you make it, reward yourself! And if you don’t, well don’t go punishing yourself but you’ll do it anyways; the fact that you didn’t complete your task will make you procrastinate more most likely.
Second Act: (requested right from MetalHead!) Get rid of the mind editor. This is less procrastination and more of a mental block that will cause you to procrastinate. It's simple Blank Page Syndrome. There is your blank page. So you write one sentence, and look at it. "What crap!" you think to yourself, and you delete it. You write another sentence, maybe not even a whole sentence but a half of one (oddly close to the first one, since you have so much 'writer's block') and delete that too. Continue for the next 2 hours. You've got to stop that. Or, at least not do it for two hours! So how do you stop that? Shut off the inside editor. Think to yourself, "This is my first draft. If I'm lucky, it will suck. But that isn't the point, I just want to get it down so I can see my story as a whole. Then, I can make it as pretty and amazing and best-selling as I want." I can't do this yet. Not with most things; I'm too critical. But that's why I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year! To learn how to shut evil-editor off.
Part Three: Brain storming and writers prompts. When ever I don't have a story I go to my friends (preferably those that read a lot) and ask them, what kind of story would you want to read? They're usually pretty bad about it, "A good one," they say. but ask yourself that question, whats the point of writing a story if you wouldn't want to read it when its all done? Just brain storm about emotions, and conflicts. Talk to yourself (when no ones around!) and just do dialogue, make it up as you go, something good will come of it. Use writing prompts. The best I've found are here but do google searches for them, they will give you the best results.
Hopefully that has gotten rid of your procrastination! I'm hoping to add more 'parts' as I think them up. The rest will come later...
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