There are days I feel like I was born to procrastinate. I can be very good at it if I want to be. Anything and everything can serve as a distraction for the work I should be doing. The society for procrastinators, should they ever get organized, have selected the two headed turtle for their mascot, as it symbolizes indecisiveness. My procrastination is never due to indecisiveness. I know I am avoiding doing something. In fact, the only time indecisiveness plagues me is when I’m trying to figure out what I want to eat. Otherwise, I usually make up my mind pretty quickly.
So, what am I procrastinating? Finishing the editing of Nowhere Feels Like Home. I know I have to make some changes, I even know what most of the changes are, but day after day has gone by and I have yet to pick the manuscript back up and work with it. I really do want to finish it and get on with the next book, but instead of returning to work on it, what do I do? Look at other websites, get caught up in reading tweets or any other social networking site, and inventing reasons to call people. Even now, in writing this, I am procrastinating working on the writing I need to get to. Pretty soon, I’ll look back on the evening, and say, time just slipped away. Time didn’t slip away, I ran from the task at hand.
Why do I get this way when I’m so close to finishing? I think it boils down to exactly that. I am so close to the finish line, I can taste it. The end is in sight, and all I have to do is cross the finish line. But once I have crossed that line, I can’t go back and tweak the manuscript any longer. It will be officially complete. I am a confirmed tweaker. If it was possible, I’d still be making changes to Misfit McCabe. So, when all’s said and done, actually finishing a manuscript and calling it complete is a very emotional thing for me. I feel like it’s sending my baby out to fend for itself, and like anyone facing empty nest syndrome, I’m not quite ready to let go of my baby yet. You don’t want to send your child out to face the world before they are ready to take it on and soar. But, I must. And so, I must put an end of this procrastination…and now…to work.
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LK Gardner-Griffie
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Once I finished the above post and actually started to work on the manuscript, the next time I looked up an hour and a half had passed and I had accomplished a fair amount.