Your Tour Guide Through Procrastination Mire

And on your right, you'll note Procrastination Mire. Never understood why anyone would want to wander around in there. Big, nasty, thorns that pierce dreams and determination alike. Insecurities and time sinks that'll take the legs clean off your projects. But people wander in there all the damned time and then wonder why they get lost. There are no maps, y'all. Soon as you think you got the Mire figured out, it rejiggers. All I can say is mind the signs. DO NOT ENTER.

But if ya do, there're a couple of features you gotta look out for. They'll sneak up on ya and that'll be the end.

1. The Excuses Sands - this one comes with a bonus cause it's easy to get lost in excuses, right? Eh, not feelin' it, I'll do it later cause <insert excuse du jour>.  Presto. Ain't nothing happenin' but yer butt parked on a sofa mainlining six seasons of some shitty series you coulda written better. Fine, you say. You're a big deal adult. You'll master your excuses. That's real nice, ain't it? Now, you get hit with the bonus. Yer friends, family, and bystanders will start makin' those excuses FOR you. They'll pat you on the head and say, you've had a lot goin' on, poor dear. Whatever you do, don't agree. You read The Odyssey? Yeah, don't care if it was the Cliffnotes. You'll recall how Odysseus blocked sailors' ears so they could get past the sirens? That's you in the Excuses Sands. It's the only way out.
2. Mastering the Mundane Sinkholes - the sinkholes are sneaky and they shift under yer feet. You'll think you got it all under control. Life. The universe. Everything. The answer ain't 42 in this case. The answer flexes and bends as you navigate around it. If you want out of the Procrastination Mire, yer gonna have to master the mundane. Do ya even know what that means? It means sleeping. It means exercising. It means eating yer greens and leaving the pastries in the damned they come in. No matter how sweetly they sing, potato chips ain't yer friends. Yeah, yeah, once in a while, sure. Monks don't get outta the Mire any faster than mere mortals. But ya get me, right? Ya can't neglect any part of the life that supports yer calling and still hope to get a lick of anything done. It's seductive, though, ain't it? Cause you just know that shaky ground can support your weight for awhile - and you can neglect yer support structures for awhile and pull all-nighters. But there's always a price tag. Sometimes, that price tag is everything (or possibly you) collapsing around ya. Due diligence. Balance your fool checkbook. Patch the roof. It's easier to pay attention to your project when you ain't living in a cardboard box letting the rain in on yer head.
3. The We're All Doomed Island - Aw. This one. It's the only solid land fer miles around and it sits dead center of this danged swamp. Ya scramble up on its shores, dirty, tired, and half drowned. Ya can't leave. Where ya gonna go? You'll just sink again if ya step one toe off and wasn't that a gator that just swam past? So ya sit there, hopeless. Helpless. This one ain't no joke. It's dangerous. Flat dangerous. People die here. The only way out is to get off that island. Don't matter how. There are no maps, mind, but there IS help. Talk. Ask for help. Sing. Dance. Learn something new. Don't matter what. What matters is getting yer brain workin' for ya rather than against ya. Ain't easy, but it can be done and if ya can get that done, you'll figure that someone afore you worked out a way to harness that there gator and ride it far away from We're All Doomed Island and straight out of The Procrastination Mire. 

Now. If you look to the left side of the swamp buggy, you'll get a gander of I'm Not Good Enough Canyon. . .

Worldbuilding - Foundation Process or Procrastination?

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven - one entirely appropriate for science fiction and fantasy authors - is "spending time on worldbuilding vs. actual drafting – what’s your balance?"

I've included a map here that first appeared in THE MARK OF THE TALA, the first book in the original Twelve Kingdoms trilogy. (For those who don't know - I didn't before I drew the map - the split down the middle is to accommodate the book binding.) Quite notably, I didn't draw this map until after the book had been written, the next books sketched out (very sketchily), and a couple of levels of editing completed with my publisher. At that point my editor asked me for a map of the world in the story. He thought it might make it easier for readers to follow the travels of the heroine, Andromeda, the middle princess.

So, I drew a map. Before that, the world had existed only in my head. But I'd envisioned it in vivid detail, so the task of drawing it out ended up being fairly straightforward. I spent most of my time figuring out how fantasy world maps should be drawn, and fixing logistical details like putting the split down the middle.

Later, however, I discover that most people thought I was crazy to do it this way. In fact, many SFF authors spend considerable time, even years, detailing their world maps and building out the details of the society, before they start writing.

Some of this approach, I think, comes from storytellers emerging from role-playing game experiences. In those, a great deal of effort goes into creating the world and rules before the game can be played. This is not me.

I also think that worldbuilding can be a form of pre-plotting. By creating the world and the details, the writer creates a kind of framework or outline for the story to evolve in. This is also not me.

So, it could be that I worldbuild the way I do - which is discovering what it's like by riding around in my characters' heads and observing it - because I write for discovery. That's how my process works on all levels, and faithful readers know I always say the most important thing is to own your process.

There's another reason, however, that I don't do worldbuilding before I write. I decided long ago that the only way I'd get a book written was to put down words. That sounds self-evident, but the decision is a profound one. I made a choice that NOTHING mattered more than putting down words - which includes things like drawing maps and other worldbuilding exercises.

When aspiring writers ask me about worldbuilding, when they tell me what they're doing to create their worlds, I'll say those things are great but they don't count as writing.

Only writing counts as writing.

Procrastination Advantage

Procrastination is defined as the act of postponing or delaying something.

Resistance is defined as the refusal to accept or comply with something; the attempt to prevent  something by argument or action. Or in a writer's case - inaction.

Which, when you think about it, is really what's going on with procrastination. We're postponing (and/or preventing) the work. I think of procrastination as a symptom of resistance. It's a non-useful safety mechanism, some primordial brain space activating when we contemplate pursuing something that matters to us. Steven Pressfield has built a career out of describing resistance and has specific advice for combating it.

But are there times that procrastination is an advantage? Maybe. In rare circumstances. But let's be clear. 'Advantage' is pushing it, in my opinion, because I have to say that procrastination feels TERRIBLE. It's an awful place to be. So any benefit it confers is weighed against chest crushing pressure it exerts. These are the rare circumstances where the advantage of procrastination edges past its ickiness.

1. Procrastination is a symptom of an ailment. Not mine. A book's. Procrastination can be a little bit like waking up with a sore throat. It *could* just be a silly thing that will go away after a cup of tea. Or it could be strep. For me, if I go two days procrastinating, then my book probably has strep. Diagnosing the problem can take days. DAYS. Because it means disengaging from a novel in progress enough to get the 10,000 foot view so I can ID what's wrong. The problem could be in the previous chapter, or it could be in the first part of the story. Once I figure out the problem, it may take another couple of days to work out how to fix it. Only then can I move on. This is procrastination acting as a signpost that says "Hey, dummy, here be plot hole!" Let's not get into the psychological reasoning behind why my brain cannot possibly leave that stuff until the editing phase.

2. Procrastination as means of knitting up a raveling brain. Modern life is full of distractions, noise, and demands on our time. You know. Your beloved can't find his or her car keys. One kid is having a melt down about the diorama due in history tomorrow (no, of course he hasn't started it), another is going to starve to death RIGHT THERE on the kitchen floor if food isn't shoved at her this instant, and the dog just threw up all over your dining room carpet. And you're trying to write. Our brains become noisy, crowded places when we're juggling all of the roles adulthood requires. Procrastination is occasionally a means by which we let some of the excess sturm und drang ooze out our ears. It's meaningless activity meant to soothe some of the frayed and ragged edges so we can restore mental silence and focus. If that's the case, directing procrastination activities to that end (meditation work, working out, going for a walk in nature - alone) can actually get you back to work faster than if you just try to suck up the randomization and work through it.

3. Procrastination as serendipity. This one hasn't yet happened to me. I've only heard about it happening to someone else who had a contract for a project that she just kept dragging her feet on. This frustrated her no end and she could never articulate why she had so much trouble approaching the work. She liked the story and liked the work she'd done to win the contract, so what was going on? Just as she bit the bullet to call her editor so she could beg for a deadline extension, word came that the house had closed. She ended up feeling like she'd dodged a bullet. Now who can say whether she, on some level, saw and registered the warning signs of a publisher in trouble and then signed with them anyway - or if the whole thing was a coincidence. She did write the book thereafter and ended up self publishing it.

I've heard it said that procrastination is your subconscious extending you a vote of no confidence. If you're procrastinating, it's because you don't have a goal and a plan in place to get you to it.

Is that true do you think?

Procrastination vs.Causation

I'm at Cleveland Concoction this weekend, Friday and Saturday March 10th and 11th. If you're in the area of Northern Ohio, check out the website: HERE for details, location, hotels, and all the info!

My CLEVELAND CONCOCTION Schedule:
FRIDAY:
9PM What is Urban Fantasy?

SATURDAY:
1 PM Character Creation Challenge
7 PM Elevator Pitch Tutorial
10 PM Writing Fantasy Romance

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"Everyone procrastinates sometimes, but 20 percent of people chronically avoid difficult tasks and deliberately look for distractions..."  -Psychology Today

Procrastination is not something I often do. If there's work to me done, it's getting done. That said, when those times appear, those times when I just 'don't wanna,' its become apparent to me that there is more of a reason than avoidance of adult responsibility.

Sometimes, it is a need for more information. Once that hurdle is leapt, then the desire to get back on task reappears.

Sometimes, it is overwhelming. For instance, ProTools. Oh. My. God. ProTools. If you know this program, I need not say more. If you don't...the instruction manual is like reading 200 pages of stereo instructions. *headdesk* Just seeing the vastness of this dream-come-true access to such resources...it sent me straight into ripping down the wallpaper in the bathroom. I spent two weeks in that bathroom, wearing myself out physically (wallpaper removal. wall washing. wall repairing. raised stencils. painting. decorative painting. disliking and repainting. touching up. buying fabric for curtains and sewing. and so much more.) It seems it was all a subconcious plot to get me to sit for a bit every day and read in that manual, then give me something physical to do while ruminating over the information I'd just taken in. By the time the bathroom was done, my fear-induced procrastination about the program had turned into a ready-to-work attitude.

My advice: think about what is truly at the root of the procrastination. If it is just 'don't wanna' find a way to make yourself 'wanna,' such as a reward. The purpose of the reward is to keep you from producing 100 % crap work. If the reason is something else, take steps to tend to that ASAP.

Progress is active. 

You may spin your wheels, 

zig and zag a bit, 

but eventually 

you'll get the traction 

and move forward!

Procrastination as a Positive

I’ve been a bit down the rabbit hole lately. An apropos metaphor for this post as I found this photo in a college friend’s scrapbook. That’s me at eighteen, dressed as Alice in Wonderland for a sorority party. This last weekend I met with a lot of my sorority sisters from college. We celebrated our chapters 100th anniversary, which meant we spent a lot of time talking, resurrecting old memories. We also met with the collegians currently in the chapter – as young and fresh-faced as I was then.

And this photo is me, too, many years later, taken by my friend, Karen Koonce Weesner, who I met as a pledge sister when I was eighteen. We gave a talk to the collegians and assembled alumnae. I called it “Now We Are Fifty” – and we wished that those girls would have the blessing of that same kind of lifelong friendship.

It’s been a good month for me that way. I spent a weekend with Grace Draven, and then my lovely friend Anne Calhoun came to visit me. This coming week I’m spending with family, celebrating my mom’s birthday.

I am overflowing with love and the best kind of connections.

Which is a wonderful thing, as there’s been some upheaval in my writing career the last couple of weeks also. The good kind! Out of respect for the people involved, I can’t tell you much until the end of March, but it’s going to be a really good change for me. But, you know, Alice taught us that about change – growing taller, smaller, eat me, drink me, through the looking glass – it’s always painful.

All of this means that I haven’t been writing very much. I’ve been taking a lot of days off to handle business, to travel, to be with people. When I have been writing, the project has gone slowly because all the upheaval has changed the trajectory of what I’m doing. Sometimes it’s felt like I’m procrastinating. I certainly haven’t been holding myself to a rigid schedule or wordcount production. 

I remind myself, though, that none of that means I’m not working on the book. Or books, which is what it really is.

That’s the topic for the week – When Procrastination Is Your Friend. There’s a lot that goes into writing. Done correctly, the stories we spin grow out of who we are, how we feel, what we’re experiencing. Instead of procrastinating this last month, I’m letting myself call it a time of refilling. All of these conversations and time spent strolling through wonderland and old scrapbooks are ways of relaxing and reliving.

So are stories.

I’ll be ready to write again soon.

Love to all my sisters in Gamma Phi Beta, in TTKE