I Really Should Be Writing

 

There's a meme most writers are probably familiar with - the "You Should be Writing" meme. There are a variety of them, with different characters and scenery - but the message is the same.

Yes, I should be writing. I've started a few new short stories for my next book, but my writing has just recently come to a screeching halt. I feel like my motivation is lacking. My stories need to be mapped out, but I haven't been working on them. I know I'm not stuck. I don't have writer's block. It's just plain old procrastination.

Procrastination, that tempting, time-wasting thief of productivity, is something we're all familiar with. I know I need to get the writing done, and I want to do it. I was excited to dive in and start working on these new stories. But when it comes to writing, I haven't procrastinated this much since I was in school and would put off writing term papers for as long as possible. So why am I procrastinating now? Why does any writer procrastinate?

Fear of failure. It's a pretty common reason for procrastination. I'm working on mystery stories - not an easy genre for me. What if I start writing and realize the story isn't working?  Maybe I'm worried I won't be able to fix it and I'll end up ditching the story completely.

Insecurity. We writers often struggle with it. I sometimes catch myself thinking, "Maybe I'm not a good writer. I don't have many people reading my stories or buying my books. Maybe I should stop." I am my own worst critic, and it's that inner critic that plagues me.

There's also the worry about what happens after the book is finished - the worry that no one will read what I've written, and the seemingly irrational opposite worry - that someone will! And what if they don't like it? Then there are the typos and punctuation errors I'll find after I publish. There's just always something that I have to go back and fix, which fortunately with print-on-demand, I can do.

And what about all the work of promoting the stories after I publish? How do I get through writing about what I've written  - book blurbs, social media posting, advertising? I've done it before, and it can be tedious work. And I'm not great at it.

Procrastination is a thief of time, and for me it's also a thief of joy. I find myself feeling depressed and down on myself for not writing. It may be that feeling depressed caused the procrastination in the first place and is now in a vicious cycle also the result of it. But in spite of all the anxiety, fear, and insecurity, it makes no sense to not be glued to a notebook or to my keyboard working on my stories, to be doing all kinds of mindless, boring little tasks just to avoid them.

Why do we tortured artists put ourselves through this? It's part of the creative process apparently. An impending deadline can spur us into action when we're putting off doing something, but I don't actually have one. As a self-published author, I am not under contract and have no obligation. Still, I do have a goal for publishing that starts out as a month and then gets whittled down to the day of that month that I want to publish by.

So as the days fly by and my stories are incomplete pages in a word document and my characters are as stationary as mannequins, all waiting for their scenes to make their way from my imagination to my fingers, the "You Should Be Writing" memes keep popping up in my mind.

Yes, I definitely should be writing. How to stop procrastinating? I don't think there's a specific strategy; I think you just bust out of it. I have a notebook and pen on my nightstand now to give me a push though, and all my books are on my Kindle app on my phone for extra encouragement.

In any event, new stories will be coming this summer!