Is it procrastination or is it work?

Crossposted from Blogetary:

Way back in the 80s and before, when I was much younger and before I had any access to computers, I was writing with pen or pencil on paper and then when I got that down, I would set it next to my typewriter and do my best to type it up and revise it as I typed. And then when I went through that draft I’d set it aside and after a time I’d go through it again, writing by hand bits to stick in here or there and crossing out chunks and then sit at the typewriter and type it out again. Sometimes I had notes written on napkins, paper bags and bits of paper all just stuffed in my purse or backpack or riding somewhere in my car.

It was a long process. Sometimes I’d go through magazines for inspiration. Sometimes I’d make up writing exercises for myself to get better at characterization. I subscribed to an art magazine for a time as a way to get a better grasp on a more visual way to approach writing.

But in the end, I still had to take all that input I had gleaned from the research and exercises and actually sit down and get all those ideas out of my head and onto the paper. And that meant writing it out by pen and/or pencil on paper and/or typing it out. And going through it over and over and over again.

Now, this is not a post about how things were better in the “bad old days.” I don’t think they were better. It is much easier to come up with a readable draft for yourself and others these days. Sure, some people start out with handwritten drafts, but more often than not, we start with typing it out on the screen. And it’s so much easier – the keyboard doesn’t require the punch of fingers, just the mere tap. Correcting mistakes is a walk in the park – no onion paper or back spacing on the correction ribbon, no white out or keys stuck together if you type too fast. Some writers swear by all the tools they use in Scrivener or Final Draft. And then there are the writers who do the whole Post-It Note thing and there are boards (all online). Research doesn’t mean going to the library basement to peer at hard to read microfiche or pouring through the Readers Guide to Periodicals to find the handful of articles you’re looking for to make sure you know how a musket works or some such thing. You can Google it. And if you like what you find, you can download the book. Right there! You can check it out on your e-reader. Need to do research on a personality? Great – find them on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or Instagram.

But along with this new ease of getting things out on the page and all these fantastic new “tools” has come, I think, a new set of distractions. New ways of putting off the basic writing of the draft in favor of the online research, the “pinning” of topics, putting together playlists for each story or each character, creating a “platform” and “fostering” an audience that we may or may not have using Facebook, Twitter or blogs, creating outlines so detailed that you might as well just sit down and pound out the words themselves. One of those things “they” have told us out there in writer world is to ask ourselves where we see our book in the bookstore. And so we obsess over that. We make ourselves busy making style books for our characters but forget to actually get those characters into the story. We get so preoccupied with making sure our plots fit into the three-act arc or the two-pillar structure or that all our narrative bits are no longer than 150 words (because God-forbid someone might get bored as you actually describe the setting or what’s going through the character’s mind – but isn’t that what you read the story for? To get all those juicy details? Otherwise you might as well just watch a movie!). We want to make so sure our story will fit into all the correct slots and don’t write anything bad before we even put anything on the page. So, we don’t write anything at all! I actually saw a post by a writer who was so terrified of writing anything bad that he just stared at the screen for hours. He’s probably been paralyzed by so many “rules” floating around out there that he can’t get himself to just get the darn story on the page.

Because that’s the point. The point is to get the darn thing on the page. All those other things are just procrastination. It’s just the editor part of the brain trying to keep the creative side from doing anything “wrong.” Only the thing is, part of being creative is putting all the crap out there and seeing what’s good enough to stick. But you won’t do that if you’re so busy being worried about doing something wrong or puttering with outlines and style books and “methods.” All that stuff may help, I’m not saying it won’t, but it doesn’t do a darn thing unless you actually get to writing and go through the actual process of writing your tale, complete and whole, on the page. You have to give your creative side free rein. And that means sitting down in front of a blank screen or page and waiting long enough, usually whilst writing the complete crap that you’re going to delete anyway, until the editor part finally takes a walk or a nap or relaxes and lets your creative side out.

Later – after you have gotten the complete (or as complete as you can get it) story on the page, then and only then, can you go back and take a look at it through the eyes of your editorial self. Then you can take all that work you did on the outlines and style books and decide to either use them or throw them out. After you have completed that draft, then you can decide whether it fits into a certain form – or NOT. Then you can double check how a musket works, or whether a celebrity would do this or that.

All I am saying is that one of the things writers are so very good at is procrastination. We are champions at procrastination. We have created whole groups and industries on tools that may be useful, but that we use to procrastinate doing the actual work.

So, again, I’m not saying to go back to the “bad old days” of handwritten manuscripts or Underwood typewriters, but I am saying that before you set up that style book or pinterest page, before you make those playlists or set up outlines and file folders – consider how much of all that work is actually going to be used for your story and how much is just procrastination.