On Procrastination & Writing

I am a master of procrastination. I am also a writer.

I know – I shouldn’t be admitting this. Not in public. But we’re all friends here, right?

Deadlines are great. I love deadlines. They tell me when to coast and when to panic. They give me an excuse to stay up late, eat junk food and blow off social commitments I shouldn’t have said yes to in the first place. Because of, you know, that deadline.

Procrastination can be rationalized if you try hard enough. It’s a mental break while your mind is working out what you’re doing next in the background, a.k.a. your subconscious. That Netflix binge is research. Writing a blog post or short story for submission is a workout using a different set of creative muscles.

Then again, maybe you’re just putting off until tomorrow what you were supposed to have gotten done yesterday.

But it’s not all bad. As an expert-level procrastinator, I’ve got a few tricks to get past it and I’m willing to share them with you. Because we’ve all got to face those deadlines sometime, right?

1. Disconnect from the Internet

Turn over your phone and the wifi on your laptop. While not foolproof (phone alerts are still an ongoing distraction), this will dissuade you from falling into a Netflix/Facebook/YouTube/Twitter/Instagram/Snapchat etc. vortex of just one click and then I’ll get back to work.

Because it’s never just one click, is it?

2. Leave the house to work

Cafés are great. Bars if you prefer less caffeination and more inebriation to get your writing done. Go where people won’t bug you and there’s enough going on for you to feel like maybe you’re procrastinating when you’re staring off into space for 5 minutes but it’s not 5 hours of binge watching later. And fresh air! Always a good thing.

3. Start Slow

Try paying a bill when it arrives instead of waiting until the day it’s due. Book that dental cleaning appointment instead of delaying until your jaw has swelled to the size of a grapefruit and you need root canal surgery. Get that grant proposal ready a month before the deadline so other people can give you feedback rather than leaving it to 11:59 PM on the day it's due and hoping your internet connection doesn’t drop at that critical moment.

The more you practice, the easier it (should) get. Right?

It’s ok. You’ve got this.

What are your tips and tricks to deal with procrastination? Share them in the comments below.

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Beth Dranoff writes the Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Suspense Mark of the Moon series, published by CarinaPress / Harlequin and sold through most online booksellers. Currently she’s working on Shifting Loyalties (a.k.a. Mark of the Moon – Book 3). She lives in the Greater Toronto Area with her family, her dog, and more books than she can count. Is it before noon? Then there’s probably a mug of coffee nearby too. Like her on Facebook, follow her on Twitter or drop by her site at bethdranoff.com.

Going for the Juggler: The Art of Multitasking

Recently, I had to face a hard, highly inconvenient truth: I am not a multitasker. In fact, I'm not the best single-tasker, either. Believe me, I try. But the time has come to admit that I may never be like those perfect people out there who color-code their zillions of to-do lists and zip through them while I'm stuck in the drive-thru lane at Dunkin Donuts. Do I really, really hate these overachievers? Of course I do.

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Okay, I lied. I don't hate them, because many are good friends of mine. They're always sympathetic and do a really good job of hiding their pity.  Whenever I whine or beg them for advice--usually when I'm under some desperate deadline--they try their best to help me mend my scattered ways. "You just need to focus," they tell me. "You can do it. Block everything else out. It's not that hard. Really."

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I'm always psyched up after these cheerleading sessions. I have the best of intentions. But usually, I'm back to ground zero before it's time for that second iced tea. That's why, after my last self-imposed-deadline debacle, I vowed I'd become a champion multitasker. After all, everyone is busy these days, right? People have jobs and kids and parents and pets to take care of. They cook and clean their houses and volunteer and hit the gym. And somehow, they manage to get those fingers flying on the keyboard and get their manuscripts in on time. Do I qualify for special dispensation? Sadly, I think not.

I decided to waste/spend a bit of time researching how exactly I might become a model of efficiency. I was delighted to find there were plenty of helpful articles out there. But guess what? Technically, there is no such thing as true multitasking. The brain can only handle one task at a time.  Some people even claim that our minds can actually explode (okay, deteriorate) over time from cognitive fragmentation overload.

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Of course, that's not the full story. There are ways to work around that single-task thing. You can work on making your brain work faster in switching between tasks. And if you pair a challenging task (say, writing a book) with a less-difficult one (listening to music), it can work out okay for some people. (Side note: Agatha Christie famously claimed she did her best book plotting while doing the dishes.) Oh, and shocker: creating to-do lists, color-coded or otherwise, is extremely useful.

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The most important thing I took away from my "research"--not to mention real-life experience--is that Stress is Bad. If you're frozen and frazzled with worry about getting everything done at once, your productivity decreases. Breaks are necessary, and so is pausing briefly to set your intention for each new task. It's good to get up and move around, and chances are excellent you may have a solution for a problem (say, a pesky plot point) when you return, because you'll probably be approaching it from a different angle. Even nutrition and hydration are important (I'm including snacks and additional iced teas in here).

So I may never be a multitasking queen, but I guess I'll keep trying.  Maybe I've just been a little too hard on myself all this time. Baby steps, right?

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LISA Q. MATHEWS lives in New England but sets her series The Ladies Smythe & Westin in sunny Florida. She is currently polishing her multitasking skills by writing several new mysteries at once. Her titles include CARDIAC ARREST, PERMANENTLY BOOKED, and the very latest, FASHIONABLY LATE.

So who has helpful multitasking pointers or--even better--crushing tales of defeat to share in the comments?

PANTSER VERSUS PLOTTER, WHICH ARE YOU?

Well, I've been finishing up the character profiles for my WIP, a paranormal suspense story and trying to get down to some serious writing. First chapter is done, and I'll be starting on chapter 2 today, after the day job and once I've gone and worked out at my local Curves.

I've done a mini-outline so that I know where I'm at least beginning the story. I don't always write up an outline/synopsis of any sort when I'm writing, but for some reason this story just seemed to need it, so that's what I've done.

I'm not a "pantser" or a "plotter" per se. I'm basically a hybrid of the 2. I'll get the idea for a story, that kernel where the spark or inspiration comes from. I'll try to get that written down quickly, because if I don't, it will sometimes go out into the ether, never to be seen again. Then I'll try to do some character development, getting to know the heroine, the hero, and the villain. Then it's a lot of seat-of-the-pants writing, hoping that the story will flow.

Whenever it doesn't, or I hit a roadblock, that's when I'll start outlining pertinent areas. The things I want to happen or the locations I know will be in the book. Sometimes this will be enough to break the logjam and get things rolling again. Other times, my procrastination gene kicks in, and I'll let things sit for weeks at a time without every sitting down to the computer (or even picking up pen and paper). That's when it's really hard to get back into the flow, at least for me.

I find that if I write on a fairly consistent basis (or try to), the story seems to appear on the page much easier. If I take long breaks in between, it's much more difficult to get the rhythm back that was there in the beginning.

So, which type of writer are you? Do you plot every move of your story before you begin? Or do you just let the words flow and like the surprise of what comes from that?