The Elephant in the Room

I have been mulling over an idea for a writing project; it will be a fairly time-consuming undertaking. I have had the idea stuck in my mind for over a year now..it comes..it goes..but it always comes back. The weather was going to pretty frigid here over the weekend so I decided I would tackle the first outline of the writing project because I knew I wouldn't want to be going outside or running errands.

So there I sat at my computer on Saturday morning complete with flannel bathrobe and slippers, determined to get the outline completed. It wasn't easy. I found myself wandering away from my computer more than once to tend some menial task like loading the dishwasher. At one point, I found myself heading upstairs to have a shower before it dawned on me that I was doing that 'thing' again. That 'thing' that I do so well is the fine art of procrastination.

After finding myself on the staircase, I turned around and headed back to my office and sat back down in front of my computer. I repeatedly told myself that I would reward myself with a nice, hot shower after I completed my outline. With a bit of encouragement from my boys (they let me read my outline to them), I had the inspiration that I needed to work through the first draft of my outline and be on my merry way.

I am excited that the first very rough draft of the outline is done and I am feeling energized to work on it more but I will let it rest for a few days. Procrastination is a horrible thing but if you set your mind to it, you can work through it. Unfortunately, for budding and established freelance writers, procrastination is like the elephant in the room; you know it is right there distracting you from your work but you can't seem to get around it. Sometimes, you just have to sit yourself down and work through it in order to get done what you set out to do.

How do you handle procrastination...drop me a line and let me know!

Until next time...ciao