Morning Procrastination Practices

Getting off to a good start every morning is important for writers with stories on their minds. Here are some  ideas that might save you a bit of time in those wee hours o' the morn.

1. Use a French press.
No having to wait for the percolation. No depending on the clean operation of the pause-and-serve feature. Spills, after all, keep you from your work station even longer. Those one-and-a-half to two minutes could make all the difference between catching that idea worded to your liking or having to settle for the default sentence strung together by the limits of your short-term.

French press is where it's at. Take it to your desk with you, but make sure you initially pour in enough creamer for a few warm-ups straight from the coffee maker. Sit back and guzzle. You will get a good three cups. That should suffice at least until 11.

2. Autonomize your dog.
The little furry friend wants in and out for potty breaks or just to chase a squirrel along both fence lines. Leave the door open. She doesn't have thumbs to turn that doorknob, so her sense of autonomy suffers.

When she's in, she wants out. When she's out, she wants in. Leave the door cracked for her. To hell with it. A house can always use a fresh flow of air. It's getting a bit too chilly now for many flying insects, so take the risk.

The computer needs more attention than your anxious pet. Only one offers you unconditional love. Take advantage of it.

3. Run through your social networking sites first.
Face it--even if you ignore all browsers in a daily attempt to focus on working only with your word processing program, all those unread emails, tweets, and Facebook updates swirl around in the back of your head. Get them out of the way first.

The trick is to limit your time involvement in these sites during the early hours. You don't want to look at the clock and see it's almost noon and that you've been doing nothing but blogging for four hours. But do scan through your pages to prioritize important information that you feel you will have to get back to. Who knows? Something somebody posts could be exactly what you need to read that day to help with your next writing hurdle.

Ahhh, the art of productively procrastinating. Everybody has the same 24 hours in a day. Some of us use part of that time wisely...to blog to ourselves.

Surely, there has to be some afternoon procrastination practices. I'll get into those later.

Fear, Procrastination, and the Apparent Lack of Confidence in Writers

How ironic is it that the writing articles that most appeal to me lately are all based on writers' fears? Fear of simply expressing the self, or of rejection, or of not being considered an expert, or of some unconfirmed worthlessness leads an aspiring writer straight into procrastination. At least, that's what I've gathered from the countless numbers of online articles found via my Twitter feed and in each back issue of Writer's Digest I continually rotate.

I love reading these "lack of confidence" articles because I can relate. Or is it more because I want to relate? I want to struggle with other writers--aspiring or professional. Ideas can escape my mind quickly, so in the meantime I can at least read one of these articles on how to "write what I know" with "passion", drafting it out with no respect to grammar. "Just get the ideas out onto the page." Okay, but before that I need to read one more article with tips on how to avoid distractions and how to just plant me arse in the chair. Stare at the damn, blank screen all night if you have to.

Fine. I will stare at the blank screen all night right after I read your related, linked article about avoiding writer's block. Then, I will summarize my new wisdom gained from all the blogs and articles I read when I could have been writing. Then, I will open up that Word file in my taskbar titled, "TitleUnknown", and will edit my newest short story, or novel, or whatever it is before writing a new scene. That way, the story is fresh in my head, as are the lessons learned from all my readings.

Fortunately, I went through this process yesterday so now I only have half of my pages left to edit before beginning that new scene. Unfortunately, I've left my wife (still getting used to saying/writing that because I'm newly married) alone in the living room and she needs my opinion. Jonathan Adler is being featured on HSN and there is a nice looking salt & pepper shaker set. One is a pear and the other is an apple. You can leave them out year round, as their shade of green is presentable across all four seasons.