How Do You Procrastinate? LWC Writers Share Their Top Five

This winter LWC will celebrate five years of LWC. We are starting the celebration a little early by doing a weekly top-five series. Each Wednesday LWC members will post their top-five answers to a specific question. This is week three and LWC writers were asked:

How do you procrastinate when you should be writing?

Sheryl Griffin:

1. Log on to Facebook
2. Log on to Twitter
3. Call a friend
4. Check email
5. Read blogs

My “fantasy” procrastination list

1. Clean the bathroom
2. Wash the windows
3. Mow the yard
4. Mow the neighbors yard
5. Bake anything: cookies, cupcakes, bread, muffins, pies or cakes!

Karen Phillips:

1. Taking care of chores when they can wait. I guess it’s a toss-up on this one of what to procrastinate on the most, especially freakin’ yard work and bills. Writing, for me, creates a lot of clutter. Sometimes I feel like my environment reflects the clutter in my mind, so I’ll take my focus off my work and put it on chores.
2. Watching TV or playing computer games or facebooking. This doesn’t even need explaining. I honestly hate Angry Birds.
3. Volunteering my time away. I tend to do this because I’m lonely, too.
4. Low self-confidence. I think I can’t….so I don’t.
5. Running down crazy rabbit trails. Like yesterday, I looked up what having low levels of Vitamin D will cause for nearly 30 minutes. Mindless research.

Karen Aldridge:

1. Clean my office. I rationalize it though. I can't possibly think clearly if my office is a mess.
2. Read (for research, of course). Hmm ... I wonder how J. K. Rowling handled viewpoint in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Of course, one hundred pages later, I'm engrossed, and I've completely forgotten I was doing research. Then again, was I ever really doing research?
3. Hang out at Longview Rec. Center. I mean, how can I possibly be creative if I'm not drenched in sweat and on the verge of passing out?
4. Nap, nap, and, oh yeah, nap. I'm pretty sure I was a cat in a past life. And I wonder why I don't sleep at night.
5. Blog, blog hop, and Facebook. More research ... and social networking to advance my writing career. *wink* *wink*

Heather Clift:

5. Do the laundry. Given Mt.Dirty that is currently waiting its destiny, it would appear I do more writing than I thought.
4. Read a book on writing. I have read several, have two I've started, and several more in queue. Best so far? Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
3. Read a fiction (sometimes non-fiction) book. I can't not read. I call it research.
2. Facebook. 'Nuff said.
1. Clean the house. Who can write in all this filth?

Ron Billmyer:

1. I rationalized that I had a lifetime to finish the novel that I started writing in 1978 shortly after I started flying storm missions for the Air Force.
2. I continued to fail to recognize that the time to get the job done on this earth is finite.
3. I continued to write a series of short adventure stories, as opposed to following conventional writing guidelines for writing a novel.
4. I continue to write sporadically what became a monster of words without a beginning, a middle, and an ending.
5. That monster, being done without an outline, character development, conflict consideration, or plot development was so disjointed and confusing that finishing it became easier to put off than to complete.
NOTE: the solution to the above is set forth clearly in the iteration of the above; and knowledge of that is the power and the solution.

Cece Dockins:

1. Searching on the Internet for the "dream home" when I make it big.
4. Perusing other people's blogs, website feeds, and Facebook.
3. Reading
2. Reading
1. Reading

Mary Ann Weakley:

How do I procrastinate? Let me count the ways:
1. I spend too much time reading the morning newspaper. I'm a news junkie, though getting over it lately with disgust of media and political jockeying.
2. Too much time watching Today or Good Morning America (afraid I'll miss some news.)
3. Too much time reading and answering emails, checking Facebook.
4. Too many breaks for lunch, pet the cat, snacks, mail (if a new Writer's Digest arrives, read it from cover to cover), feed the cat, snacks, check emails.
5. Too much time reading good stuff from Rachelle Gardner and other blogs on writing. Need to just write.

Jennifer Ballard:

1. Blogging (or following)
2. Spider Solitaire
3. Web-surfing (research)
4. Housework
5. E-mail

Ross Martin:

1. One I have been doing for more than a year cause a rewrite of a story I started due to the fact I am not sure of how to punish my good main characters, seems terrible to put them in a perilous situation but I suppose I will have to.
2. By going online and social sites etc.
3. By making excuses like I will be more creative tomorrow............tomorrow......
4. By watching this really great t.v. show.
5. By using the thing of being in a bad mood which I may be in again after pushing too hard on the pencil and breaking the lead or chewing the eraser.

Jesse Cunningham:

I procrastinate by reading. I lie to myself and say I'm "researching."