It's Monday. Sometimes I like Mondays because everyone's out of the house and I enjoy the serenity and chance to work (mostly) undisturbed.
But it's Monday. That means I have to drag myself to the pool.
Swimming and writing evoke the same feelings for me; I love to do both, but each one has aspects that make me a first class procrastinator. For swimming, it's getting out of my toasty, pillow-soft bed. Creaking elbow and aching (formerly broken) toes are telling me that it's okay to miss one day. And that first dive into the water, when it's snowing and freezing outside? That takes a bit of masochism to do it three times a week.
With writing, it's the revisions. Once I know what to do it's not a problem, but forcing myself to sit and think about a plot problem (currently) is worse than going to the pool. But procrastination for avoiding sitting at the desk to fix edits can be good. While I turn over the problem in my head, I clean, do laundry, run errands (because gardening when you still have almost a foot of snow on the ground doesn't make sense), and talk to the cats. (Sometimes that helps!). When a great revelation hits, though, and I know it's going to require going through every last damn sentence (numerous times, ugh), I procrastinate (like now although Mondays are new blog post days, so I'm not really procrastinating, right?).
Logically I can reason that going to the pool regularly is good for my health (summer's coming! bathing suits, ack!) and I sleep better because I'm exhausted. So getting the edits done means I can work on sparkly new project(s).
It's just that I'm so comfortable... not going out in the cold/not sitting at the desk.
But no one ever got anywhere important by staying comfortable. So I'll get my cup of chai latte and tackle those edits.
What do you need to get 'uncomfortable' enough to achieve?
Char
Oh, man, I'm right with you on that today. I finished a major rewrite of my WIP which basically turned into a first draft of a completely new story, and today's the day I told myself I'd read it through and start making notes on the revisions that need to be done. My house is clean, the kids' toys are organized, and I made a wonderful crock pot meal, but haven't even opened the file.
ReplyDeleteI think this was perhaps just the blog post I needed to read today. And chai sounds good, too ;)
Let's make this interesting- let's see how far we've each come by Saturday. Check back and we'll post our success/failure... :)
DeleteLove this idea! I'll be back on Saturday!
DeleteWell, I'd got more done than I thought! Not only was I able to re-read and take notes on it, but I'm already about halfway through working through those notes! Hope you had a successful & productive week as well!
ReplyDeleteKudos to you! Me, not so much. :( Had family/car/life dramas, but I promised my agent I'd send her the ms this week so I have to finish.On page 101 of 265, and I still have to do one more read through. Tomorrow, it's get busy time!
ReplyDelete