PSM

Teresa Nielsen Hayden links to this advice on "Being able to write" from K.G. Schneider, the Free Range Librarian.

It's all good advice, but I want to quibble with one point. Schneider notes that sticking to a schedule keeps her focused and "less likely to waste eight hours piddling in pencil-sharpening mode."

Since when was "pencil-sharpening mode" a bad thing?

If it weren't for pencil-sharpening mode, I'd never get anything else done. Deadline- and blank-screen-avoidance can be an immensely inspiring, productive thing. This is when I do laundry, wash the dishes and regrout the tile in the bathroom.

The realization that you'd rather be doing almost anything instead of wrestling with that awkward transitional paragraph, or trying to fix whatever it is that's so off-key and abrupt with that concluding section, can actually be energizing and liberating. Rechannel that energy. Seize the opportunity to do almost anything instead. Do the laundry, wash the car, clean the rain gutters. It's amazing how much you can accomplish in an eight-hour span of such PSM piddling.

By "accomplish," of course, I'm not referring to actually writing anything. But your home will be immaculate and your pencils will be impeccably sharp.

Comments

[U&A]

And then of course there's that wonderfully mind-sharpening moment of terror when the deadline that had been looming figuratively in the background suddenly leaps into focus and that's when you get the writing done!

[Lucia]

And, occasionally, while you're doing all those mindless tasks inspiration will strike. Every knitter will tell you that she or he always has a no-brainer project going, not too big or scary and easy to carry around. (Memo to knitters: socks work well.) Supposedly there is a scientific basis for this, something to do with engaging the motor circuits and letting the rest of the brain percolate in the background.

[Alan]

This is the essence of John Perry's structured procrastination.

[Jen R]

I filed six month's work of paperwork yesterday rather than edit a story that I've been staring at for two weeks. I still need to deal with the story, but at least now I'm ready to start doing my taxes.

[Peatey]

Don't forget "reading the slacktivist" in the list of PSM accomplishments!

[Garnet]

'Sticking to a schedule' is all well and good to say, but what's actually going to hold you to it? It's not like you've got an editor or a printer or a publisher waiting on you, ready to scream your head off if you miss your deadline; it's just you, doing your thing, and if you don't make a deadline then... you don't make a deadline. And once you start not-making deadlines, it becomes a really easy habit to get into.

[Teresa Nielsen Hayden]

No two writers do things the same way.

[Beth]

In "Writing from the Inside Out", Dennis Palumbo distinguishes between two types of pencil sharpening: procrastination and downtime (aka goofing off). They may involve the same activities and look identical from the outside, but procrastination is marked by some degree of guilt and anxiety not found in goofing off. He suggests that goofing off is useful, not only because it results in a clean house, but because it gives ideas a chance to percolate in the back of your mind while you're working on something else.

In my experience, procrastination has no natural end point. I procrastinate because I'm insecure about my writing and the longer I avoid from it, the more I become convinced that I'm not really a writer at all. The only thing to do is push past the procrastination and force myself to write. Goofing off may go on for hours, even days, but it eventually reaches a natural completion where I feel ready, even eager, to return to the work at hand.

No two writers do things the same way.

Very true. It's always tempting to engage in a little 'sympathetic magic', learning how great writers go about it and trying, by imitating their behavior, to conjure a little of their genius. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. We've each got only our own talent to work with and our own judgement to determine the best way to realize it.

[Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little]

Sometimes performing that 'sympathetic magic' is a useful exercise that helps us unearth our own best procedures, though.