Procrastinators don't do it at all

I’m battling with something I call procrastinationitis novellum. Sounds painful doesn’t it? Trouble is I usually put off the things I like least until last - like washing up the breakfast things, which I usually get around to while I’m cooking supper. Some things I hate so much I never do them all - like cleaning the car. So, why is it that I put off doing something I love too? Do you do that? I love writing. I love writing books. I love words, sentences, filling up a blank page. But knuckling down to writing my novel is beginning to beat me.

I read King’s book - see earlier blog - and that really helped. I am now managing one measly chapter a week. I want to do it so much. I love it when I’m there at the page. But somehow that washing up is more appealing at the moment.

Last night I went to a discussion between Edna O’Brien, Esther Freud and Rachel Cusk. It was held in a really funky place in Amsterdam, Felix Meritz on the Keizersgracht, in an upstairs room that was ironically lined with empty bookshelves. When asked about how they felt about writing, o’Brien said, ‘I hate it.’ She finds it torture, but she couldn’t ‘not’ do it. Cusk is riddled with self-doubt and agonises over every page. But one thing they all agree, is that that is what they do.

While I was out there, listening, I was not doing of course. Putting it off again. I could have spent the five hours it took me to get there and back at my iBook, writing my novel.

Or I could have been reading another wonderfully inspiring book about writing. As my friend Anne said on our long power walk this week, ‘I have read so many books about dieting so why have I not lost any weight? I should have by now!’ She was joking of course.

And me, I spend several months creating the perfect writing corner in my house - new chairs at just the right height, by a view of the sheep in the field opposite, new laptop (of course). But have I written there? Of course not. I am here in my office, sitting on a cheap Ikea chair, facing a wall of messy files. There is no window. And I’m writing this blog instead of writing my novel. I think I should rename my ‘writing corner’ my ‘not-writing corner’.

King created the perfect writing space too - wide polished wood desk in the white sea of a light and airy loft - and found the muse had scarpered. He is now back in a rickety desk under the eaves facing a blank wall. Because you see writers write. That is what they do. That is what I am doing now. Can’t resist it . . .in general . . . it’s just the novel that’s the problem - and of course it’s the thing I want to do most.

But, as I have now read all my emails and responded, had my breakfast, washed up and done the other stuff on my to-do list. I have run out of putting-it-off devices.

Deep breath, here goes

See you after chapter 5.

Jo