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Sunday Snippet: The Procrastination Edition

I’ve been procrastinating…okay, no big news, right? I am a world-class procrastinator. I passed amateur status years ago and have gone into full-time professional procrastination. Nobody wastes time as well as I do. And honestly, it doesn’t even have to be time spent scrolling around the Web. I can put off doing anything that needs to be done with something as basic as folding laundry—oh, excuse me for a minute, I do have to get some stuff out of the dryer… brb…

Fifteen minutes later…I’m back, clothes folded and put away, next load is in the washing machine, and while I was in there, I scrubbed the sink and the toilet in the half-bath/laundry room, which I prefer to think of as multi-tasking as opposed to procrastination. However, I am procrastinating today about writing…

Liz and I have a thing–we call it “Doing Muriel,” which basically is finding all the Freudian or psychological reasons why something is or is not happening. (Named after my mom, who was Joe Psychologist and examined everything with a critical Freudian eye)  If Liz were here with me now, she’d be going all Muriel on my ass because we both know that the reason I’m procrastinating about writing is because the last book had to be revised so much. I mean it was really not ready for development when I sent it to my editor. I knew it and she figured it out immediately.

Now, I did the revision work–it took time and effort and sweat and tears–but I did it. The book, The Carpenter’s Heart is Jasmine Weaver’s story and book 1 in the Weaver Sisters trilogy. I ended up loving it, but man, it sucked everything out of me. So  now, I’m… I dunno… nervous about Jo’s story. It’s in my head, I’ve made copious notes, done all kinds of research on yachts and boat motors and Duke University and diabetes and insulin pumps and biomedical engineering (Ha! You’re intrigued, right?), but I haven’t gotten very far in the actual storytelling part. I’ve let editing gigs and book promo for Falling for the Doctor and blog writing and all kinds of other stuff take precedence over simply sitting my butt in the chair and writing.

So, here’s the deal. I’m going to stop getting online (except for Gchat with Liz) first thing in the morning and just write. Everything else can wait until 8:30 a.m. From 6 to 8:30 each morning I will write. I won’t edit the previous day’s work or scrabble around the internet under the guise of research. I will simply write… this story is fun and it needs to be told, so I’m going to tell it.

Gratitude for this week: Beautiful sunny days that feel like summer; our peach tree has little grape-sized peaches for the very first time; salad days are here again and I’m loving crisp cool fresh vegetables; lovely Mother’s Day celebration and watching a track meet with the Pod; a sleepy-sweet bedtime snuggle with Grandboy, on Monday night who still wants Nanny to sing to him as he falls asleep. I know those days are soon going to come to an end–he will soon age out of wanting Nanny to sing, so I’m cherishing each time he asks me to come upstairs with him.

Stay well, stay safe, continue to send light to Ukraine, and most of all, mes amies, stay grateful!

8 Comments

  • Roseann McGrath Brooks

    As a totally untrained observer, I don’t think you’re a procrastinator, Nan: You’re an avoider. You still do what needs to be done, just maybe not in the order you should be doing it. I’m one of those obnoxious people who starts work right away and hands it in early, but I definitely end up “avoiding” things I actually enjoy doing because I stress out over getting the other stuff done. Doing the gratitude thing daily always helps with that balance, as does making a list where I include even the fun things I want to do. And I agree with Liz: Jo’s story will be what it needs to be and will be just right.

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    • Nan

      You’re a good woman, Donna! I generally don’t procrastinate about the truly important stuff, but I can drag my heels if I’m not feeling it, you know?

  • Janine

    Reading the part where you went to put away the laundry and ending up scrubbing the bathroom sounds like me. I tend to do one thing and then another, but I usually forget what I was doing at the very beginning.

    • Nan

      Janine, that makes me feel both good and bad, youngster…now I can’t blame my age and yet on the other hand, my age has become a handy excuse for so much. 😉 Thanks for stopping by, sweetie!