I scrubbed my kitchen today. Scrubbed it! Merely doing the dishes and wiping down the counters wasn't enough, I had to get out the spray bottles and move every single thing off the counters to clean behind them. I washed down the microwave and the stove top. Halfway through the clearing off the cookbooks and coffeepot and paper towel holder, etc. etc., I realized I was deeply into procrastination mode.
It's not that I don't know where I'm going in my current wip. I do. Yet I've been struggling with the first scene in chapter seven all week long. Not sure why. Is it any surprise that since I had the whole day ahead of me to write, I would, instead, be scrubbing my not-that-dirty kitchen?
If you look for a definition on-line, you'll come up with several definitions of procrastinate. The first is pretty simple: "to put off till another day or time; defer; delay." OK, I can go along with that. Talking to other writers, I've found that a clean house is often a result of procrastinating. If the writing isn't going well, at least you can eat off my kitchen floor.
Another definition says that to procrastinate is: "To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness." Lazy? Did you see the work I put into that kitchen? I used some real elbow grease in those corners, I'll have you know!
But what about my wip? Have I been lazy with the story telling? Rather than dig in and work on characterization and conflict, have I been taking the easy way out - watching movies or reading someone else's book or cleaning the kitchen? Um...maybe.
So after I finished with the kitchen, I sat down at my computer, determined to make my minimum word count of 1K (which I haven't hit all week!) - no more procrastinating. By the time I took a break to walk with my husband, I'd written over 2 thousand words. I'd finally finished the first scene, and the second, and was well into the third. It felt good. Better than a clean kitchen, that's for sure!
So do you ever slip into procrastination mode, whether with your writing or with something else you'd rather delay? And when you procrastinate does it result in a clean house or something else?
Natasha
www.natashamoore.com