Procrastination is the bane of many writers … or would-be writers.
It can affect you at any stage of your writing life. And it’s one of the top problems I hear about (along with “time management” more generally) from Aliventures newsletter readers, Writers’ Cafe members, and coaching clients.
Writing procrastination looks like:
- Wanting to write … but never getting more than a few pages into your first draft.
- Spending ages staring at a blank page before
giving up for the day.
- Writing a few sentences then stopping to scroll on social media.
- Leaving writing till the last minute before you have to write something to hit a deadline.
- Feeling frustrated that you’re “wasting” writing time and making slow progress.
It’s easy to feel like procrastination is your fault. Maybe you worry that you’re lazy, or that you’re just not cut out to be a writer. After all, if you really wanted to write, you wouldn’t procrastinate … right?
I’m not sure about that. I love writing – and I write freelance articles for a living! – but
working on my fiction can still be a lot of effort. Sometimes, just sitting down to write in the first place can feel difficult.
If you feel the same, you’re absolutely not alone. Even full-time professional writers can struggle with procrastination – as anyone still waiting for the next Game of Thrones book can tell you!
Let’s take a quick look at the “why” of writing procrastination before we dig into some common causes of it.
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