Saturday, April 15, 2006

Procrastination

How do you get past procrastination? I keep finding others things to do instead of what I'm supposed to be doing. I've read that procrastination is similar to perfectionism. You want to do the task perfectly so you keep delaying it and in turns nothing gets done.

I want to write a short story and submit it to a contest. How hard can that be? Very difficult. I keep searching for ideas to write on and then don't want to dwell on some of those subjects that may be painful, so I end up doing something else. I can visualize the story unfolding in my head, but when it comes to writing, nothing happens. Is it writers block? I don't think so.

I think a big part of it is that I don't want to fail. Since I'm an editor, I worry a lot about mechanics of the story instead of just writing it down. I know that's true and know what I should do, but I don't.

I work on some ideas, but don't get past the idea stage. I need to expand and develop a story. Any story. It can be funny or dramatic. It's on the tip of my tongue but it just doesn't flow to actual words.

So instead I do something else. How can I break that spell?

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