Saturday, September 1, 2007

Meaningful Procrastination

The process that writers go through is very tedious. I don't care if you are writing a short story or a novel, it is not tons of fun. You have to get your head into a zone that seems like it is impossible to find. Every good writer that I know has a seemingly artistic process, that is almost a ritual of sorts. I think any good artist may go through these phases, although I am not sure that I rank myself among good artists, I do have my rituals just the same.
First I have to procrastinate. I know it's coming, so I try my best to get it out of my system as early as possible. I will go out to eat, read a book or something else distracting. To distract myself further, I suddenly decide that my house must be immaculate before I can begin. Every single thing gets on my nerves. After I have done this, I will begin to write, but the first 5-10 lines I write are never quite right, so I always begin from scratch over and over again. Eventually when I get it right, it just flows for a while......Well until I get stuck. Then I have to start the process all over again.
Oddly enough, I do not have to do these rituals to blog on here every day. Maybe it is because I know that I can go back and change it all at the drop of a hat -- its harder to do that once it's all printed out (for some strange reason). Maybe it's because these are my daily drains, my way of getting everything out of my system. I simply don't know.
I do know, that at this time, I am stuck, so this is the first step of procrastination to restart :)

1 comment:

SAHMmy Says said...

Have you tried writing in longhand? A blank page is far more inspiring to me than a blinking computer screen.