Rosanne Dingli

Rosanne Dingli

Friday, October 25, 2013

How to procrastinate [like a successful author]

Career authors are weird creatures. Female or male, young or old, seasoned or relatively new, they have strange habits that are rarely found in the general population. They are so unusual one can find articles in the The Guardian about their habits.

They keep strange hours. They eat peculiar foods. Their personal relationships are often the most curious within any community. Even their taste in music and other arts is a bit off the wall.

When new writers start to court the possibility of turning professional, and taking up writing books as a career, these things begin to gnaw. Will they have to adopt strange and unusual behaviours? Will they alienate family and friends? Will they have to keep their money in a sock? Now let me say right away that being a career author does not necessarily mean that one drops all other occupations. On the contrary - you will find it's necessary to hold on to anything else that provides regular money. A career author can also be a career accountant. Or teacher. Or roof tiler. Or magazine layout artist.

A career author is one who habitually and compulsively argues about writing, thinks about writing, writes about writing, obsesses about writing, and occasionally writes. One of the habits most writers take up is drinking addicting liquids, eating addicting foods, and finding ways to avoid writing.

Pic: vickcourtney.com
Yes, I've finally arrived at the P word. Procrastination is one of the weird habits one must adopt if one is to be considered a career writer. Even though there are those among us who shame the rest with a productive stream of publications - startling evidence which is hard to refute - they too go through phases of extreme lethargy when it comes to writing. And extreme energy when it comes to finding pursuits with which to distract themselves. Any and all chores and tasks become attractive. Washing the car, weeding, photographing insects that stray into the house, or sketching wild animals visible from the safe perimeter of their fences, whittling whistles, rearranging the sock drawer ... there is not a writer on earth who will not recognize this behaviour and nod.


Knowing how to procrastinate is the territory, the bailiwick, the province of the writer. There must be some manual somewhere that shows them how. To save you the search, here are just a handful of tips, which will bring you safely and without confusion into the realm of the career author.

1. Make lists of non-urgent household tasks to promote to very urgent the instant you have time to write.
2. Invite, attract, and allow family members into your study at all times of day.
3. Permanently switch off the message-taking or voice-mail function on all your phones.
4. Acquire a fledgling pet that needs intense full-time care, or have a baby.
5. I won't even mention social media. [Oops - does that count?]
6. Grow vegetables and keep chickens.
7. Knit socks.

With these points in mind, it should never be impossible to avoid procrastination again. You will not feel uncomforable telling people you are an author, because your habits will surely confirm you could not possibly be anything else.


Enhanced by Zemanta

14 comments:

  1. I'm kind of going through that now. My ending in Killer Stilettos is a hot mess. So I'm in a quandary of sorts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Forget the domesticity. Let the cobwebs grow and then go on a coffee bar crawl. Just one of the peculiar habits of writers - well, this one. A room full of potential ironing has not yet hit the ceiling so why not procrastinate a bit more. It is in my genes after all. but so is writing, so going to bed at 3a.m. means I can have it all. How about you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. By the way, I am listed as a visitor form Turkey but actually I am in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, so I am really living in an island on the Med, so that makes me a kind of Lotus Eater!? Of course when I stop procrastinating and publish a best seller, I will return to Australia.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gosh! Then I'm OK. Don't need to whip myself mentally. That is a great excuse, but if I love writing so much why do I resist it?

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Resistance is what being a writer is all about. When an author finds themselves unable to approach the current work in progress it's because it's still cooking in the head, and the time has not yet come to put it all down. We might love writing, but we are mortally scared of putting the truth down on paper. Resistance is futile - eventually you will!

    ReplyDelete
  8. So we're supposed to procrastinate? I've been feeling guilty for nothing?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nothing's for nothing, Norma - guilt is all part of being a good author. Join the club ... you're already in!

      Delete
  9. Hi Rosanne,
    I have just bought my first book of yours "Counting Churches" and I am loving it so much that I have no time to write!
    I flew through my first 5000 words for my novel and then my computer had to go to the computer hospital. So I took hundreds of notes and missed my writing like a child that was gone.
    Now my child has returned and I have found it impossible to rekindle the passion. Part of my novel is based in Malta where I have never been, but have realised that to write about it I must go and so I shall be there in November, laptop in hand.
    Lets hope I don't get distracted!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So lovely of you to say so, Nikki. I do hope you can still find the little bits of folkloric history in Malta. Enjoy your visit there, and yes - write about it.

      Delete
  10. I shall keep you posted Roseanne

    ReplyDelete