Insecure Writers Group Post: Procrastination

"Never procrastinate today what you can put off till tomorrow."

Wise words of wisdom from my father (also one of my parents many trivia team names, they also have "My couch pulls out but I don't" and "I'm wearing woman's underwear, and it feels so good") Where was I? Oh, procrastination, and insecurity.

It seems a good topic since I am a day late on my insecure blog post, and because I've been procrastinating writing my blog, and because I've been procrastinating on writing a post on procrastiantion ever since Bobby my nemisis over at Wildy Urban wrote Procrastinators Anonymous .

Now you might be wondering what the P word has to do with writing, or perhaps the I word. Well back in October when I first found out about the Insecure Writers Group, I wrote a post about the difference between trying and failing (or something like that), and the P word in my opinion is basically based (like the alliteration)on the fear of failing, and if you never try you can never fail. Remember the insecure steroid guy? I'm gonna relate to that or well, I am going to try to.

I think there are a few things that lead to procrastination to me.

Lazyness
Fear/Insecurity
Stress

I've been procrastinating alot lately. Alot alot. I've also been under more stress than normal lately, work has been intense, I have a dance show this weekend (five hours of practice a week takes up alot of time), I am broke (dance show prep costs lots of moneys) and general life is stressful stress. So, because of that stress I've been doing other things that trigger stress relief, reading/knitting/running/watching tv.

But, those are all excuses. I know they are excuses, but I do them anyway.

Then there is the lazyness element, but I am not sure if lazy-ness is a true cause because a lot of the things I do to procrastinate writing are harder than actually writing, running/dancing/knitting (maybe not knitting). They are lazy in one aspect though, they dont require alot of thought.

But then there is the fear. Fear of sucsess, fear of failure. Insecurity. You procrastinate doing something if you are afraid to do it. But still. I don't think that is actually the root of the problem.

I love to write, I have fun crafting a perfect scene, or listening my characters bicker with one another in my head when I write their dialogue. Just me, my netbook/laptop/pen and paper, music and a cup of tea, sticking my head in a world where anything goes because its MY WORLD. Spending time thinking up what motivates my characters etc. Don't get me wrong, its work, but its fun. Here's the wrench though. The second you call yourself a writer, or make friends who are writers, writing is not just something you like doing. Its something you should be doing. Its something you have to do, or you are failing. Then there is stress, then their is worry, then their is insecurity.

The joy gets lost in everything else. So to me, the way to shake procrastination is to make it not something you should be doing, but make writing be what you WANT to be doing. If you are not a writer, but instead someone who likes to write maybe then you cannot procrastinate writing since its not something you should be doing, and if its not something you are doing for any reason other than you want to, you can also shake that insecurity from failing away.

This month, I'm gonna try to remember the joy, and see if it helps.

Do you procrastinate?

p.s. When I joined the Insecure Writers Group, I was the 173rd member, they are now up to 230 members? How many have you checked out?