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.