Embracing Procrastination - by Holly Race

"Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!" So said Charles Dickens.

Sorry Charles, but I’m going to disagree with you.

Procrastination is one of my core skills. The kind of skill you put at the top of your C.V.: Holly is a passionate and dedicated worker, with great attention to detail and a particular affinity for procrastination.

But we're told that procrastination is something to be ashamed of. We guiltily joke about it with our friends and use it as a stick to beat ourselves with. Personally, I used to spiral - I'd feel so bad about the amount of time I was spending procrastinating that I'd end up writing off the whole day. A proper throwing my toys out of the tub moment: 'If I haven't done anything useful by 1pm, I'm not going to, am I?'

But what if we could start to see procrastination as a Good Thing?

Over the last few months I've come to realise that there are types of procrastination that have allowed me the headspace to work up an appetite for writing when I was in a slump, or have given me the distance I needed from a plot problem in order to solve it. So I've rated my procrastination methods here, on a scale of 1 to 5, on how useful they were in helping my writing. That's right, I've done the procrastination deep dive so you don't have to (unless you want to, or unless you're already too far down to see the surface, in which case - keep going and you'll eventually come out the other side).

Browsing social media (1/5)

We all know this already, but scrolling endlessly through Twitter is not conducive to either low blood pressure or inspiration. If you want a good kick to get off social media, watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix. I guarantee you'll be horrified at exactly how these platforms manipulate our thought patterns. Some of us need to have social media accounts in order to promote our work and, at a time when we're all socialising online more, to keep in touch with friends. But this is definitely one to limit to times where you don't need to be working.

Cooking (2/5) 

Sourdough focaccia- yum!

Here's the thing. I love cooking. Love. It. My husband used to feel guilty about how much time I spent in the kitchen, until he realised that I cook as a way to escape real life. But I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that it is not good for sparking the writing bug. I become so engrossed in measuring, stirring or worrying about whether there's too much or too little cumin in a dish, that I end up replacing stress over whether my writing is any good with stress over whether my cooking is any good.

Getting outside (3/5)

If lockdown has shown us anything, it's the value of being able to get some fresh air. Whether you prefer to jog, cycle, walk or garden, getting outside is so important to mental health. I don't think I need to say much more about the health benefits of some daily outside exercise. For writing, I find it less useful. A long, lonely walk is the only type of exercise that tends to give me plotty brainwaves, but most of us can't spare several hours a day. I've taken to puffing away with Couch to 5k or taking a scenic detour on my bike on the way back from dropping off my daughter at nursery - they don't tend to give me the headspace to work out writing problems, but they do give a much needed energy boost.

I embroider more slowly than a sloth

Doing something creative, badly (4/5)

We spend so much of our time as authors trying to perfect our craft. We spend months, sometimes years, tweaking our writing until we don't think we can make it any better. And then we send our words out into the world to be loved and rejected, and the rejections always hit harder than the compliments. So it can be liberating to do something creative that isn't going to be judged. I've recently taken up embroidery and writing poetry (I heartily recommend How To Grow Your Own Poem by Kate Clanchy). Am I good at either of them? Absolutely not. But I try to do one of them every day, just to remind myself of the simple joy and sense of achievement of making something for myself. Lifting that pressure of trying to do something perfectly has meant that I'm more willing to get stuck in to my 'proper' writing - because I'm less afraid to fail.

Journalling (4/5)

Bullet journalling has become a real trend of late. When Buzzfeed starts making videos about something, you know you're in the zeitgeist. A friend tempted me over to the dark side a few months ago, and I now have drawerfuls of washi tape. I've leaned in hard. If you're a to do list kind of person, you might find that journalling helps your sense of organisation and control. It's been a game changer for me: I was getting daily headaches and couldn't work out why... until I started to track my water intake in my journal and realised I'd been drinking two glasses of water a day on average. My brain was, as a friend so kindly put it, a desiccated husk. Now that I'm ticking off my water intake as I go, thereby making sure I'm drinking enough, the headaches have cleared up, I'm not as tired and my head is clearer than it's been in years. Instead of browsing the Internet before bed, I write out my plan for the next day, decorate it in ridiculous numbers of stickers with cliche motivational quotes. And instead of feeling as though I've eaten the equivalent of an entire tub of mini-rolls, which is what I used to feel like after an adventure through Reddit, I feel as though I've drunk a cleansing green tea.

Yoga (5/5)

I've suffered from chronic back pain since the start of the year, as though it was an omen of the awful things to come. At the beginning of lockdown I decided to sign up to a friend's online yoga course (www.nomoreshoulds.com in case you're interested!) - I'm not the biggest fan of having to travel to such classes but love the community feeling of taking classes with other people instead of via a pre-recorded, impersonal YouTube video. I've slowly built up to taking at least a short class every day, and the difference to my back pain has been remarkable. For a lot of writers, pain associated with a sedentary lifestyle is a real problem. I can't recommend stepping away once or twice a day to do some gentle twists and stretches enough. Beyond the physical benefits, the meditative quality of my yoga classes (these are gentle classes; I'm not trying to become a contortionist) has seen me come up with the solution to many a writing problem in the middle of a downward dog.

So this is my resolution for the dregs of 2020: to embrace procrastination. Guilt and shame are such useless emotions and anathema to creativity. As of now, I'm banishing them and spending more time practising my stem stitch and mountain pose. Perhaps you'll join me?

Holly Race worked for many years as a script editor in film and television, before becoming a writer.

Her debut novel, Midnight's Twins, is published by Hot Key Books. She also selectively undertakes freelance script editing and story consultant work.

www.hollyrace.com

The Fine Art of Not Housekeeping by Steve Gladwin

There must be something happening in the abba blogisphere. People have been writing a great deal about the way they work, about the highs and lows of social media, about avoiding distraction and even about their state of mind.

I’m about to add to this – mostly - serious thread, and I hope you won’t consider it too frivolous. I thought of the idea almost three weeks ago before anyone had posted any of the above topics. Rather than back away and think of something else, I was determined to go through with it. Posts often have tended towards the serious and I’ve been as responsible for that as anyone. We all need a break into the slight and chucklesome, but there is also a point at the heart of this. So here for your delectation is a blog about how to use writing to avoid housework.

It’s like this. I hate housework, and I love writing. One I find sometimes alarmingly easy (and I realise this may be tempting fate so I’m touching wood as I write), whereas the other I somehow manage to either get out of, set up a whole load of avoidance tactics for, or do a token amount of and that grudgingly. I know I have the excuse of being a bloke, but it’s not really good enough, is it?

I have my reasons of course. I lived with someone for five years who had cleaning and ironing OCD and wasn’t afraid to impose it. I have a bit of a housework phobia in the same way as I have a kettle and washing machine phobia – because they were on all the time and I couldn’t escape them. I am also dyspraxic which means I get easily side-tracked, (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!) Now I live with someone who once worked as a chambermaid and hates housework about as much as I do. Yet somehow our house stays clean enough not to disgrace us, and I actually quite enjoy cleaning the kitchen now. OK, I admit it, Rosie does most of it!

But if I do want to steer clear of the housework I have a simple strategy. I write! It’s alarming how easy it is to find inspiration when  the household tasks are piling up, or it’s my turn to do whatever. And you should try it sometime, you writers who want to avoid the housework. Hours and even half days can go by before you need to worry about it again, and in the meantime you might have had a brand new creative idea, or made a deadline earlier than you expected, or created a winning story entry. And where’s the harm if the pots pile up, or the hoover stays in a corner or your clothes are slightly creased?

When can I get back to the writing?

So if anyone’s interested in this strategy, here are my top ten (fairly) fool-proof suggestions.

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*Begin writing as early as you can - say after you’ve had breakfast and /or a shower and got dressed. Better still begin when you get up because it’s amazing how many chores you can avoid if you make an early start.

*Play music while you write, either loudly, so you can't hear the sound of undone housework, or better still plug yourself in. Being lost in two worlds at once is a great way of ensuring that the horrible world doesn’t intrude and ruin it.

*Set impossible deadlines for your day that you simply have to complete, and that means there’s just no time for anything else, sorry. And should your deadline/schedule be so impossible for that day you have the perfect excuse for moving the rest to the next day, and the day after that etc.

*Have a list of tasks or target list, (mainly to do with writing – you’re a writer after all!) on a piece of paper. You can include things like a walk, doing yoga, eating biscuits, but the important thing is not to put housework on there, or you’ll suffer a pang of conscience and we can’t have that!

*Try the putting off until tomorrow approach. Most writers try this one on with challenging chapter re-writes or tedious close edits of their MS, or worst of all working through an editor’s pedantic notes, but at least if your housework doesn’t get done because of it, you can feel smug about your writing.

*Encourage long winded phone or skype calls with fellow writers and creative collaborators - especially those who you can guarantee will talk a lot - which take up the valuable time you might have been side-tracked hoovering or ironing. This may have the added bonus of leading to new work or ideas, or even both, and so what if you end up sneezing because of all the unhoovered dust, and looking like a dog's breakfast because of your scrunched up clothes, you’re a writer, right? You're supposed to look bohemian, You probably should live in a garret!

*Pretend you’re some kind of foreigner and scratch your head in amazed confusion when your partner tries to instruct you in the use of the washing machine. Alternatively find the actual instructions, but somehow miss the tiny bits written in English and instead struggle over the Swedish or Russian with a suitable frown. Now exhausted by all that effort, you can return to the snug safety of your writing where foreign instructions will never hurt you.

Confused of Powys

*Boast to all of your writer friends on social media about the huge amount of housework you’re doing. This may be an outright lie but at least it’s writing!

*Better still set up an online writing support group with a few like-minded friends. Make sure you all time your conference calls just when the household tasks are piling up. Feel better about your ignored burden by helping your fellows writers with theirs.

*Take the ‘walking always leads to wonderful creative ideas’ approach, (it always does for me!). Make sure you set out early and come back late with no time for housework in between, and too exhausted to think about it when you get back.

There, I hope this has been useful. And let me know if anyone wants to set up that group! Now I've exhausted myself thinking about it all. Time to lie down. The housework can wait until tomorrow.

  

Thunderbirds are go! Zzz

  

        

   

The Right Attitude - Heather Dyer

I’ve just spent a week at beautiful Trigonos in North Wales, on a mindfulness retreat with 25 others. (Photos courtesy of Charlie, who has an eye for beauty.)

©MOWYM

Mindfulness can be defined as ‘paying attention on purpose to the present moment, without judgement’. Sounds easy, but it requires practice. And it can change the way we live – and write.

©MOWYM

For seven days we switched off our phones and tablets, and engaged in mindful meditation and movement exercises. The days were long; up early to get a shower before tai chi at 7am, and finishing at 9pm.

©MOWYM

One whole day was spent in complete silence, sitting about, laying in the grass, wandering in the fields like children – just ‘being’, rather than ‘doing’.

©MOWYM

I’m aware how fortunate I am to have been able to take time out like this. Most of the time (like many of us) I feel like a hamster running on a wheel, driven by some form of underlying fear – a fear of not being good enough, perhaps, or of falling behind, or failing.  I tend to feel anxious or guilty if I’m doing nothing. And yet, all good things, says Jon Kabat-Zinn, the pioneer of mindfulness, come out of ‘non-doing’.

Usually, instead of simply 'being' we busy ourselves in a fearful ‘doing’ mode – which is detrimental to living fully and deeply and to being creative. Practicing mindful awareness helps us become alert to our thoughts and emotions, and thereby gradually achieve more objective distance from whatever fears are driving us to 'do'.

There are several key attitudes that are conducive to mindful awareness. As a writer I am fascinated by how these  attitudes apply both to living and writing. Here's my own interpretation:

Non-judgement

• In Life: Judgement of oneself and others are co-dependent attitudes, and lead to alternate feelings of inferiority and superiority.
• In Writing: If we think our work is great, we can’t revise – and thinking it’s rubbish stifles our creativity. Remember that rubbishy first drafts are allowed – even essential.

Patience

• In Life: Less haste, more speed! We miss opportunities and force outcomes by rushing.
• In Writing: Forcing things leads to rushed and misshapen outcomes. Let things unfold organically.

Beginner’s Mind

• In Life: Seeing freshly, newly; without learned prejudices, conditionings and assumptions.
• In Writing: Exploring with an open mind, not attached to fixed outcomes, conventions or clichés. Letting the story reveal itself to you rather than shaping it according to your preconceptions.

Trust

• In Life: Trust that magic will happen and your life story will weave itself, in the process of living.
• In Writing: Trust that magic will happen and that your story will weave itself, in the process of writing. Shaun McNiff says that creativity is ‘an intelligence that knows where it needs to go’.

Non-striving

• In Life: Relates to patience. When we try too hard it’s counterproductive and leads to a deficiency in all the other attitudes.
• In Writing: Relax. If we have an agenda or are trying too hard, we aren’t receptive to the story that ‘wants’ to be told. All good things, says Kabat-Zinn – including creative insight – come out of ‘non-doing’. Write rubbish first drafts. 

Letting Go

• In Life: All things change and are impermanent. Let life move through you and don’t try to hang onto things, people or moments. Hanging onto good things immediately leads to fear of losing them.
• In Writing: Don’t hold onto any fixed ideas, plots, outcomes, ideas of success. Let go of outcomes and just immerse yourself in the process of writing. Be prepared to throw your work away.

Gratitude

• In Life: Note what is beautiful in your life.
• In Writing: Pay attention. Notice beauty (not just prettiness) and use it in your writing.

Acceptance

• In Life: Suffering is inevitable. Resistance only makes things worse. 'Acceptance' is a subtle mindset to achieve, and is usually misinterpreted as 'condoning' something or 'trying to like it'. Acceptance is neither of these. Acceptance is when we  truly acknowledge or admit what is actually happening. Then, although the situation itself might not change, we can achieve a slight objective detachment to it, rather than using all our energy wishing it was otherwise. Eckhart Tolle says that if we can accept anything – even if only the fact that we can’t accept it. Acceptance doesn’t mean you condone a thing. It’s simply an act of recognition: this really is the situation and this is how I feel about it.
• In Writing: Acceptance leads to all of the above attitudes. You are where you are with your writing. Things  change. Be fluid, don’t force things. You are allowed to write rubbish, it’s part of the process. No need to suffer over it. Writing, like life, is a creative journey. Engage and explore, and don’t insist that it has to be ‘perfect’ – at least in early drafts. You might be surprised how things unfold, and it will always be in a way you couldn’t have predicted in advance. That’s the magic of it.

I’m starting to introduce mindful awareness into my creativity workshops, and I really recommend taking one of the 8-week mindfulness courses that are popping up all over the place. It’s a real journey of self-discovery.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, who introduced mindfulness to the West, talks about mindful attitudes on YouTube.

Heather Dyer, Royal Literary Fund Consultant Fellow

http://rlfconsultants.com/consultants/heather-dyer/

www.heatherdyer.co.uk

Me-Cramp by Ruth Symes

 My husband's been doing a lot of website and photography work recently and watching a lot of You Tube videos - especially about different photographic techniques. But one of the videos I walked in on and caught part of really surprised me:

      

'That sounds exactly like writer's block!' l said.

The speaker was talking about problems that photographers face and questions they’re burdened by.

Will it be good enough?

Am I good enough?

Am I secretly kidding myself that I’m good enough?

Is everyone else’s work better than mine?

Are they more talented than me?

Will my photos (writing) be original/creative/stylish/professional enough?

Will other people (Mum, Dad, teachers friends someone who was a bit critical once and I’ve never forgotten about it - ad infinitum) like my work? And really I suppose – will they like me?

Have I got it right, not just right, exactly exactly...perfectly completely utterly right.

They called it Me-Cramp but I think of it as the Photographer's Writer's Block. And I expect there’s the same thing for every creative job – Artist’s Anxiety, Dancer’s Dilema, Actor’s stage fright…(Although I like the Me-Cramp term best as it says exactly what it is and is so spot on.)

As well as the Me-Cramp talk there were lots of discussions about the importance of putting heart and passion in your work. Being true to yourself  owning it.

But the Me-Cramp question asked loudly and boldly or in a tiny weeny voice always seemed to be the same:

'Am I good enough?'

And the answer is: 'Of course you are.' J

Ruth Symes also writes as Megan Rix winner of Stockton-on-Tees children's book of the year 2014 and Shrewsbury Bookfest 2014.