Every week on Friday, I'm going to ask a question, and people can give their top five list in answer to it.
This week's question...
What are the top five things you use to procrastinate when you should be writing?
Mine would be...
1. eMail! I tend to obsess over email when I'm dragging feet on a writing project...opening it a couple times an hour. I do it so badly that I sometimes turn off my network to make it a less appealing option. Instead of a two-button action, it takes me minutes to get back online, so it's no longer worth it as often.
2. Facebook! See the description above.
3. The kids. When I'm hot on a writing project, being involved in every facet of their days seems less pressing than when I don't really want to be typing or writing in a notebook. I love my kids and spend time with them every day, but I also usually take my work time as well. On days when I don't want to work, that is a very convenient reason for me not to do it. "We haven't had a family game day in a while. Break out the games. Let's take an outing."
4. The house. Seriously? Me? I loathe housework (love cooking!), but when I don't want to be writing for some reason, I am Mrs. Cleaver. My husband will come home to freshly scrubbed floors, dusting done, three loads of laundry done in a day when I typically do one or two...or -- Heavens forbid! -- an actual trip to the laundrymat to do all of it at once, fold, and put away.
5. Any other writing project in existence but the one I should be finishing.
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4 comments:
ALL GOOD EXCUSES! VON
I do spend time poking around on Facebook and reading emails, but I also think about something Donald Hall, an old journalist and writing teacher, used to say. He claimed that sometimes procrastinating is really you searching for something in those deep waters that stories come out of. He would have called it the subconscious. Virginia Woolf talked about those times as fishing--standing on the bank musing with your line in the water waiting for a tug. So I think my procrastinating is a combination sometimes.
I share a lot of similar ones to you, Brenna!
5. Housework - never gotten so bad as scrubbing floors, but making a FABULOUS dinner, catching up on laundry (fortunately in-house), or cleaning out the fridge AND doing dishes are the tops here.
4. Corporal Cuddlement of pets - no kids, so I dote on the furrballs of the house. It's terrible, terrible torture for the cat, but now that he is old and head rubs help his sinuses, the rabbit is more comfy with being loved. And it is of utmost importance to show pets you love them.
3. Internet meanderings - You know the drill, getting lost in links, tabs, and "Ooh, that's really neat and I didn't know it, and I'm SURE it will come in handy in [insert particular WIP, even if it only just arrived in head]...
2. Social Networking - throw together blogs, email, Twitter, and FB and that's this one.
1. I DON'T WANNA! - I am frequently honest with myself. Now, I also need to do better at standing up to that tantrum, too...
Procrastinating rarely happens to me. And then there’s the one about the Tyrannosaurus Rex who came to New York City . . . Okay after some thought, here’s my usual list of go to excuses:
1.I am at a tough spot in the book and my thoughts need to incubate.
2.I need to work more on promotion and sending out queries, synopses, partials on new stuff and edits, blogs, interviews on currently published stuff.
3.I have to wash the dishes that have collected in the sink for the past week.
4.I’ve forgotten what my husband looks like and have to spend some time with him.
5.I need to do laundry because I’ve run through all 30 pairs of underwear.
Okay some of these are a joke—make that one. I do like a clean kitchen.
Bobbye Terry
www.DarynCross.com
www.BobbyeTerry.blogspot.com
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