Writing and Procrastination: Why?

Writing is fun. I love writing. Sometimes I feel like I could write all day long. Hell, sometimes I do write all day long.

And then. It strikes. The P word. It's a disease. Insidious. Procrastination. When all of a sudden making a pot of tea (or two, or three, and hey, maybe I should make scones to go with this tea. Scones from scratch! But I need strawberry jam and Devonshire cream to go with them...I'd better run to the grocery store. Oh! And I was going to head to Sephora to buy that lip stuff from Stila. I should get some new foundation, too, since I'm almost out. What should I have for dinner? If I start right now I'm sure I could whip up some gourmet French Onion Soup, followed by a Mesclun Salad with Mango, and hey, how about Pork Chops with Onion and Apple Compote? I haven't even thought about dessert!) oh yes, making that pot of tea turns into an entire day spent away from the novel, the screenplay, the poem, the blog for goodness' sake.

And I like writing. I love writing. Writing makes my world go 'round.

I'm not sure I have an answer for this. If I had an answer, I'd probably be a lot further along in the novel I'm working on, or I'd have finally figured out the perfect way to open my far-too-overdue query letter for Novel That Is Finished Already.

But this leads me to this very humble beginning of a blog, because I know many other writers also plagued by the disease of procrastination and this is, in my own small way, an inoculation against it. It may be almost insignificant, it may not even (or ever, for that matter) have a readership, but it is a place I'm supposed to show up to every day.

Writers don't, for the most part, have offices. We don't get up and get ready for work. (90% of The Novel That Is Finished Already was written whilst in the most unflattering, huge and comfortable flannel PJ pants you've ever seen.) We don't--especially when we're starting out, and in the time before agents and editors--have anyone to hold us accountable. No bosses, no secretaries, nothing. Nada. So this is the office for my dear ladies of letters, my dear friends plagued by writer's block and procrastination. Here we stand (or sit), fingers at the keyboard, minds at the ready.

Sephora can wait until I've written a word or a paragraph or a page. It's not like they're selling out of foundation any time soon.