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Today’s topic is about how to deal with procrastination and was written by yours truly.

Procrastination. It’s a nasty little dragon that often grows ginormous at the most inconvenient times. For instance, the last week of NaNoWriMo. It will bring in other things such as a new shelf that needs a place in the living room which facilitates an entire rearrangement of over half the room because that is so much more important than writing. Right?  Of course right.

Okay, so that is literally a true life story here. The last Monday of November, I did the above instead of writing because I was stucker than stuck on my story. So much so, that I decided to type up what I had written by hand and try to fix some problems with my story. I hoped to get the whole of that novel typed up (what is written so far anyway) before November 30th so I could still reach 50,000 words.

The problem? I decided that the day before. And as of the time of the start of my story above, had yet to write anything fictional. *sigh* So, instead of going off and doing that writing, I decided to share a couple of tips with you that you could follow and that I need to follow!

Tip #1

Write as soon as you wake up (or do your devotions if you do those in the morning). If writing is the first thing you do, you are more likely to see yourself as being a serious writer and more likely to get more writing done during the rest of the day no matter how busy you happen to be.

I have done this in the past it has helped tremendously! On the days I start with writing, I almost always get more words done than on the days I don’t. It also keeps me in writing mode whether I’m writing or not.

Tip #2

Get up a little earlier. This is especially important if you don’t have time in the morning to write before doing anything else. Maybe you have a job to get to, school to do, a husband to get out the door, or whatever. If you get up even 15 minutes earlier, that’s 15 extra minutes to do a little writing.

Even if you don’t get a lot of writing done each day due to getting up a little earlier, if you add up the extra words per day, you’ll probably have at least 2,000 more than you would have otherwise. And words on the page are always a win!

Tip #3

Take the last minute or two of your writing sessions to make small notes. Just a little something about what you were thinking should happen over the next part of your scene or chapter. This way when you get back to your writing, you’ll be able to pick up where you left off right away without having to read over the last page or so.

Tip #4

Be strict with yourself. If you have set times for writing, keep them only for writing! Especially that 15 minutes in the morning. Sometimes that procrastination dragon likes to make you realize that you could do this, that, or the other thing instead of writing during those 15 minutes. So be strict with yourself and only use that time for writing.

Tip #5

Tell your family/roommates/etc. about your writing times. This way they know this time is sacred to you and you are not to be interrupted until you have emerged from your writing trance. Unless the world is ending, of course. Then you might want to be interrupted. But only for dire emergencies like that.

I need to do that one more often, I think. The first half of NaNoWriMo was challenging. My husband was home more than usual and it seemed like every time I tried to write, he would start talking to me or ask my opinion on something. Keep that momentum going as long as you can and as often as you can.

Conclusion

I hope some of these have been helpful or new to you. Remember, procrastination won’t get your book done. Writing will. So stop reading this article and get some writing done!

 

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