Hello and welcome to About This Writing Thing, a weekly podcast about living the writing life. I'm your host, Sayword B. Eller, novelist, short story writer, and podcaster. Today I thought we'd chat about one of my favorite writing topics, showing and telling.
Anyone who has received a critique from me has likely read the word "Telling" in track changes. Sometimes I add a note along with it to give you ideas as to how you might fix it, especially if it's a particularly good moment that simply needs unpacking. That's another note writers may see from me often: "unpack this". I think at least one writer I work with now hates the very thought of unpacking anything!
Recently I worked with an author who said to me, "I don't know how to show." As you can imagine my first thought was, "Huh?" But then after that meanie in my head who is quick to respond took a seat, my logical mind spoke, "They know how to show, they're just intimidated by the thought of doing it." Now, this thought may or may not be true in this particular author's case. I've read more of their work and know they're capable of showing. It may just be something they don't actively think about.
The thing about showing is that you do have to think about it. A lot. Because it matters how you describe things. It isn't enough to say, "She was embarrassed." We need to see her face color, see her body curl in on itself in an effort to become smaller, and we need to see her wish she could become a part of the wallpaper, undetectable to the naked eye. Because, as Noah Lukeman says, "It is the writer's job to show us what his characters are like, not by what he says about them, or what they say about one another, but by their actions" (Lukeman 119).
Last year when I began this podcast, I did a little episode about eliminating thought verbs from your narrative (https://aboutthiswritingthing.podbean.com/e/eliminating-thought-verbs/). I'd recently read a 2013 article by Chuck Palahniuk on the topic and was working through my own narrative to do as he instructed, eliminate and unpack. Because my novel is written in first person present tense, there's quite a bit of "tell:" mixed in with the "showing", so you can imagine how much fun it was to go through and take out those telling parts that didn't serve my story.
Oh yeah, you heard me correctly, I left some telling in on purpose! This is because I'm a firm believer that sometimes telling works and the key to a good narrative is finding a balance that works.
Before we get into the meat and potatoes of how to use them, let's look at what showing and telling are. One of my favorite (and spot on) quotes comes from E.L. Doctorow, "The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like." In other words, a historian is going to recant for you the events that happened, but the novelist is going to make you feel as though you were there. At least, they should.
AutoCrit defines showing as the use of "description and action to help the reader experience the story" while telling is simply stating what's happening. To "show" is to add depth to a moment. This is what I try to impress upon every writer who gets that dreaded "Telling" note from me.
When revising my own novel I had a system for implementing showing into my narrative, particularly in those places where the telling was stealing all of my narrative's umph.
Take a step back and examine the scene as a moment.
Consider what emotions the character(s) should be experiencing. Are they angry, devastated, overwhelmingly happy? When that question was answered I would think about how I feel in those extreme moments of feeling. How does my body feel when I'm devastated? Empty, heavy, numb. Once the feelings were isolated, I thought of how to describe them as motions and not just emotions.
Write the scene with the motions of emotion (say that 10 times fast) taking center stage.
The key thing to remember when writing is you're not in this to "give your readers information. You want to give them experiences," make them feel what your character is feeling (Browne & King 16). I recently finished The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins. It's the story of a slave girl from Jamaica who, under the direction of her master, does unspeakable things and then, when going to England with him, is "gifted" to another man and his wife. I was uncomfortable reading this story, uncomfortable exposed to the harshness of being a Black human in 1820s Jamaica and England. I shudder to think what would have been lost with such a powerful story had Collins merely told her readers about the experiences and not allowed us to be present when Frannie's mistress turns her out or when she is last in her former master's presence. It would've been tragic.
Think about the last book you read. The last really good book you read. What kept you reading? This is assuming you aren't one of those people who can force themselves to read something they don't like. I do not understand those readers! If you don't have me, you don't have me. What types of language did the author use, did they make use of motion? Sara Collins uses a lot of bold words that lash out at the reader, angry and hopeless.
Renni Brown and Dave King give one of the best pieces of advice to the writer seeking to show instead of tell. When in doubt R.U.E. --> Resist the Urge to Explain.
The new writer (my former self included) wants to make sure their readers "get it", that they understand exactly what's going on in the scene and how the character is feeling because they want their readers to see things exactly as they do. They haven't realized yet that reading is interpretation. Not everyone is going to see their characters the way they see them. My first night as a history student dear Dr. Stitt stood in the front of the classroom and wrote across the whiteboard "History is interpretation". When you get right down to it, I think everything is interpretation and we writers will do good to realize that.
Take the movie House of 1000 Corpses for instance. When it came out a lot of people loved that the good guy didn't win. Some people even said it was "refreshing". Personally, I don't want the bad guy to win, so when I watch a movie or read a story or book where the bad guy wins I'm lost to that writer. Bad guys win in real life, I don't want them winning in fiction as well.
So, getting back to the new writer, things will begin to come together when they realize that their readers are not the same as them. They don't think like them, they don't root for the same things they do, and they may not even like the character that the writer adores. Look at Twilight by Stephenie Meyer or Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I've heard so many people say they couldn't stand Bella and Katniss, that they hated being in their POV. Just imagine if Meyer or Collins wrote these stories without leaving room for interpretation of character or their motivations, and just think if they hadn't created compelling secondary characters!
The most important part of this new writer discussion (I keep chasing squirrels) is that the less experienced writer is compelled to tell the reader how they should feel. "She is angry" can be interpreted as the writer telling the reader, "You gotta be angry because she's mad about this." It's like when you boycott something and express to those around you the reason for your boycott and they look at you like you've flipped your lid because they love chicken and pickles! Just like family and friends, our readers may not share our views. So don't spell it out for them. Just give them the story and let them figure out how they feel about it. As Natalie Goldberg says, "Use words like a mirror to reflect the pictures" (Goldberg 76).
This isn't to say that you shouldn't use tell. Tiffany Yates Martin has an entire chapter on showing and telling in her 2020 release, Intuitive Editing. In it she says, "Show and tell often work best together to heighten the reader's emotional engagement.
Take this scene from my novel (Yes, I'm using my work as an example. No, it isn't ego.)
Oliver has kept his distance since my abandoning him out back. It bothers me that I care as much as I do. The lunch rush is a whirlwind with lines stretching around the building outside and almost to the door inside. Becca says it’s the result of two factories nearby that actually give hour lunches. I haven’t known anyone by name, but some faces are familiar. I wonder if I went to high school with them and they’re just as unsettled by my presence as I am by theirs.
There is a lot of telling in this passage. It isn't horrible. It gets the point across, but this follows a very high stress moment where my MC has had an argument with Oliver, her manager and friend. Following my 3 previous referenced points, I took at look at the passage to see how I could revise to make it stronger. This is what I came up with.
Oliver has kept his distance since my abandoning him out back. Why do I care? It’s none of his business why I don’t want to go to a party. He may be an over sharer but I’m certainly not. Yet, there’s that niggle; the little tug from somewhere inside my hardened core that urges me to go to him and make sure he’s okay. Thankfully, the lines stretching across the dining room to the front doors offers a distraction from the internal nudge that keeps trying to persuade me to be human.
“Where did all these people come from?” It is less a question and more my exasperation for how hopeless getting these people served in a timely manner seems.
“It’s the two factories just down the road.” Becca says. “They actually give hour lunches so their people take advantage.”
I haven’t known anyone by name, but some faces are familiar. It’s possible I’m taking the orders of former jocks and emo kids I went to high school with but time has robbed me of their names. From the looks on their faces they’re as unsettled by my presence as I am by theirs.
You see that I've kept some telling there, but I've also opened it up a bit more, given a deeper look into my MC and her inner struggles when it comes to Oliver. Not only that but I've included an exchange between my MC and her co worker, Becca. I did this revision after reading Chuck Palahniuk's 2013 article about eliminating thought verbs. Turns out, when you eliminate thought verbs, you cut out a lot of telling.
So how do you find the "telling" in your manuscript that you need to change? Noah Lukeman says to look for it in character introductions, in places where there is a flurry of events, places where you may have jumps in time, and in your setting descriptions, while Tiffany Yates Martin says to follow the descriptors, look for places where you sum things up that may need a more nuanced approach, and look at the descriptions of your settings and surroundings.
I'll talk more about showing and telling in episode 32. This is a topic we could seriously spend hours talking about because so many writers just don't get it, but, alas, I only have 15 - 20 minutes to talk your ear off. Until then, take a look at your manuscript. Look expressly at the areas where Lukeman and Martin say you're likely to find those trouble telling spots, then unpack the emotions in those spots. Think about how you feel those emotions and how you've witnessed others feel those emotions and stay there while you write out that part of the scene. As Natalie Goldberg says, "When you write, stay in direct connection with the senses and what you're writing about" (Goldberg 75).
That's all I have for you this time. You'll find resources for this episode on my blog at saywordbeller.com. You'll find the direct link in the description below.
If you enjoyed this episode please like and subscribe, and share me with your other writing pals. The more the merrier.
If you'd like to know what I get up to when I'm not talking about writing, you can find me on Instagram and Twitter @saybeller, and you can find this podcast on Twitter (@WritingThingPod) and on Instagram (About This Writing Thing).
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Thank you so much for hanging out with me today.
Take care, keep writing, and I'll catch you later!
Resources:
AutoCrit Team. Showing vs. Telling. https://www.autocrit.com/editing/support/showing-vs-telling-indicators/#:~:text=In%20a%20nutshell%2C%20showing%20is,the%20reader%20what%20is%20happening.
Browne, Renni & King, Dave. Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print. William Morrow, 2004.
Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Shambhala, 2016.
Lukeman, Noah. The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying out of the Rejection Pile. Fireside, 2000.
Martin, Tiffany Yates. Intuitive Editing: A Creative & Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing. Foxprint Ink, LLC, 2020.
Palahniuk, Chuck. Nuts and Bolts: Thought Verbs. LitReactor, August 12, 2013: https://litreactor.com/essays/chuck-palahniuk/nuts-and-bolts-%E2%80%9Cthought%E2%80%9D-verbs
Hello all you writerly people, and welcome to About This Writing Thing, a weekly podcast about living the writing life. I'm your host, Sayword B. Eller, novelist, short story writer, and podcaster.
Today I'm talking about pacing. Why? Because I like to talk about my weaknesses. How else do we get stronger, right?
First, let's talk about what pacing actually is. "Pacing is a tool that controls the speed and rhythm at which a story is told" (Carpenter 2012). In other words, it's how fast or slow you make things happen in your narrative. The pacing in my first drafts (referred to some as the zero draft) is always at lightspeed. Things happen fast and then the book is done. This is why I'm always 30k-40k words under industry standard. I guess my first draft is really my outline. My very in-depth outline. It takes me 3 - 4 drafts before I have the pacing and story just right.
Last term my professor commented on my outline that I don't have enough action in Act II of my historical fiction/thesis novel. If you look at my work through the eyes of someone who writes plot-driven narratives you will always believe that my pacing is too slow. That's because I don't write plot-driven or action-driven narratives. I focus on conflict and characters. In other words, I don't have a ton of physical action in my stories.
"Now, hold on there, missy," you might be saying. "Conflict is pacing. It drives it."
You would be right. If you were saying that. Also, don't call me missy.
With great conflict comes swifter pacing, at least for that scene. You're raising the stakes for your character, putting them in the hot seat and making them squirm, and if you're very good at it you're making your readers squirm too.
K.M. Weiland says, "writers who are in control of their pacing are writers who are in control of their stories" (Weiland 2017). If this is the case, I am not a writer who is in control of my stories. My problem… I don't seem to be very adept at pacing scenes that are high action. I'm too wordy.
Last term my class had a discussion wherein we were supposed to write two scenes and one of them needed to be fraught with conflict and high in action. Here's what I turned in:
Scene 1
The air was thick, sticking to her skin as she rushed through the trees that spread out before her. Heart pounding and air coming out in dripping gasps, Kyla dashed through the thickets, wincing when a bare foot would land on a twisting root. The naked fingers of trees just waiting to die scratched her bare arms and tried to become entangled in the long tendrils bouncing in her wake. She stopped, her head jerking left, then right. The air was pressing harder, making her gasps come out quicker. She was alone in a sea of trees. She tried to begin again, to find her way out of the succession of naked and full trees, but her legs wouldn’t move. Falling to the ground, she rolled onto her back, her hands going to her throat, and her mouth posed to scream for help, but all air was gone.
Here's what my professor said:
In this assignment, your own style has gotten in your way. What do I mean by that? I mean that you have a certain pace and sentence structure that appears to be pretty natural in your writing. I think that voice is so strong that you fall into that rhythm without even noticing.
As a result, both of these pieces are almost the same pace. Your action piece should be more disjointed. Short. Clipped. Instead, your sentences are about the same length and offer the same type of information as in the second paragraph.
Suggested rewrite: The air was thick. Her shirt stuck to her as she rushed through the thicket. Her heart pounded. Her breath became dripping gasps. One bare foot landed on a twisted root. She winced. Kept going.
She has said in 7 sentences what it took me an entire paragraph to convey. The difference between us, I think, is that she is a more experienced writer and she writes in a different genre. She doesn't like writing in the women's fiction genre and instead prefers writing book club fiction. You may think they're the same, but they aren't. Book club fiction has to appeal to a broader audience, must like commercial fiction. More on that in a later episode.
So my problem with pacing is that I slow things down too much. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I overthink everything, and because I have very little experience with anything. This is one of my greatest weaknesses as a writer and human. I've always heard we should write what we know, but the things I know through experience are very limited. I'll be working on both of those in the future.
What do I do about this little problem of mine then?
As always, I've scoured the internet and my bookshelves to find some awesome tips.
Noah Lukeman says that "Pacing and progression are the most cumulative, most far-reaching elements of writing and thus demand the greatest long-term concentration" (Lukeman 187). It's delicate and unbelievably strong all at the same time. Think dynamite.
Two things stand out to me in Lukeman's book as things that are affecting my own pacing: my stakes aren't high enough or plentiful enough and too much description. Though he's speaking specifically of telling in the narrative, I'm harkening back to what my professor said, my sentence length is too rambly. Too long. For conflict-driven scenes where the stakes are high and the action is amped up the sentences need to be short, disjointed, and constantly keep readers on their toes. We want them to be just as out of sorts as our characters.
Courtney Carpenter lists 7 literary devices that can be used to keep your pacing where it needs to be:
Action - keep them active (duh), have few distractions, little description, and limited transitions.
Cliff Hangers - keep your readers guessing.
Dialogue - Rapid fire with reactions and descriptions kept to a minimum.
Prolonged Outcomes
Scene Cuts or Jump Cuts
A series of incidents in rapid succession - a whirlwind!
Short chapters and scenes - I used to see these all the time. One page chapters or half page chapters. They really did keep me turning pages.
Keep these scenes active and use potent verbs to keep your scene moving forward.
The really important thing is gaining the control over your story mentioned earlier by K.M. Weiland. The most disappointing thing to me, as a reader, is a big build up with no pay off. In other words, pacing that falls flat or fails to produce anything at all. Don't drag me through a narrative at warp speed and leave me with nothing. It's disappointing and frustrating.
Weiland has a few tips for both speeding up and slowing down our pacing. I guess I don't need much help slowing down, but you might, so I won't leave them out.
For speeding up:
Reduce the number of characters - I usually only have 2 characters in a scene, so I'm good there.
Minimize sequel scenes - these are your "follow up" scenes. A big break up followed with the equivalent of a movie montage of your character going through life aimlessly without their one true love.
Add a ticking clock - A deadline your character must reach in order to avoid dreadful consequences. Think Jason Statham in Crank (those movies are pointless, BTW. Well, except for the Jason Statham parts).
Raise the stakes - This is the one for me. I never feel like the stakes are high enough in my stories. Gonna keep working on that.
For slowing down:
Complicate your sentence structure.
Skew the scene.
Add more internal narrative.
Focus on descriptive details.
I'm going to be experimenting with these tips while working through my WIP. It's contemporary women's fiction, of course, but there are some highly emotional moments where the stakes will be high and I'll need the pacing to be just right. Wish me luck.
What are some of your tips for handling pacing in your own work? Send me a email or message. I'd love some additional tricks to getting my pacing just right.
That's all I've got for you this week. If you enjoyed this episode please like and share. If you haven't subscribed to my monthly email list, and you'd like to, you can visit my website and sign up to see what I'm reading, what I've got coming up, and (of course) what's happening with About This Writing Thing.
If you want to know what I'm up to between shows, you can find me on Instagram and Twitter as @saybeller or you can find this podcast on Twitter (@WritingThingPod) and Instagram (About This Writing Thing). You can also go to my website saywordbeller.com.
Next week I'll be chatting about some of my favorite literary devices. Thanks for listening. Have a great week and stay safe!
Resources
Carpenter, Courtney. 7 Tools for Pacing a Novel & Keeping Your Story Moving at the Right Pace. Writer's Digest, April 24, 2012. https://www.writersdigest.com/improve-my-writing/7-tools-for-pacing-a-novel-keeping-your-story-moving-at-the-right-pace
Kieffer, Kristen. How to Create Strong Pacing for Your Story. Well Storied, December 3, 2017. https://www.well-storied.com/blog/how-to-create-strong-pacing-for-your-story
Lukeman, Noah. The First Five Pages. Fireside, 2000.
Weiland, K.M. Learn How to Pace Your Story (and Mind-Control Your Readers) in Just 8 Steps. Writers Helping Writers, February 20, 2017 https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/8-ways-master-storys-pacing/
Show notes from Episode 25 of About This Writing Thing. Available on Podbean, iTunes, iHeartRadio, and Spotify.
Hello, and welcome to About This Writing Thing, a weekly podcast about living the writing life. I'm your host, Sayword B. Eller, novelist, short story writer, and podcaster.
This week I'm talking about procrastination. I am, as I'm sure you guessed, a major procrastinator. I've struggled with it for years, but this week's episode has helped me to put it into perspective. I hope it does the same for you.
First, though, I want to update you on my query progress. There is none. I am still awaiting feedback on my revise and resubmit from May. This process takes a LONG time, y'all. I'm not even kidding. I've also submitted queries to a few more agents and even a small publisher. I'm sad to report, sad and a little annoyed, that one query was rejected in just under an hour. This lets me know the agent didn't make it to my sample chapters because my query still sucks. I'm going to be talking specifically about queries in an upcoming episode, so look for that.
If you haven't subscribed to my email list yet, I hope you will, especially if you like this show. Subscribers get a first look at what shows I'll be recording for the month. You can sign up at my website, saywordbeller.com
Now, let's talk about procrastination.
It should come as no surprise that I procrastinated recording this podcast. Late last week I was consumed with school work and writing, and then I decided - for whatever reason - to take a three-day weekend, so I didn't really work on anything Monday. Then Tuesday, as is apt to happen to those of us working at home, I had visitors and didn't get to record, so here I am bright and early on Wednesday morning recording the episode you will listen to in a few short hours.
A few months ago I would've chided myself for not getting this done last week, but today I'm okay with it. Maybe it's because I'm the boss and I'll record my podcast when I damn well please, but it's most likely because I am embracing my procrastination.
So, why do we procrastinate and is it exclusive to us creative types?
The good news is, no, we are not the only ones who procrastinate. The bad news, it might be something that was ingrained in our psyches at a very young age. This is why I tend to agree with Julia Hess's philosophy, just go with it.
As an undergrad I procrastinated on assignments. I would wait until the day before, or the day, a paper was due and hurry through it so that I could turn it in and not be penalized. Sometimes, my procrastination was so bad that I would have to ask for an extension. There's a term for the kind of procrastinator I was in college. More on that in a bit. Upon entering graduate school I decided I wouldn't be a procrastinator. No way, not me.
And the lie detector test determined, that was a lie!
I think in grad school I just got a little better at procrastinating. Well, better at managing it. Let me tell you, it's dangerous being a procrastinator as a history major. All that research! Phew! I would do my research but still wouldn't begin my paper until the day before it was due. I was so mean to myself. Especially when I flunked out of grad school, which had very little to do with my procrastination and more to do with the fact that my heart just wasn't in history. I wanted to be a writer. Sure, I was good at history, but I wasn't good enough and that bothered me. I'd always been good at English, always been good at writing. I wanted to do what I was great at, and so I failed at what I was merely good at.
If the question of procrastination were to appear on Family Feud, the number one answer would be "Fear of Failure". Everyone says it. Alain de Botton says, "work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly." For me, I think this was my problem in grad school. I didn’t feel like I was as good as my peers and I certainly didn't think I was worthy of attention from my professors. I wanted the history degree, but I didn't feel like I deserved it.
I didn't realize it fully then, but Megan McArdle was spot on when she wrote the reason we procrastinate is because "we were too good in English class" (McArdle 2014).
I don't think that clicked for me until 2018 when I transferred from the history program (which I was excelling in) at SNHU to their creative writing MFA program. In the history program I was overwhelmed. It was exhilarating to be so challenged in the history program. I was, after all, good at it. However, I was great at writing and English. When I started the program I was overthinking every single assignment because it seemed too easy. I mean, I went from turning in 8-page papers every week to being required to turn in 2-4 paragraphs.
So my procrastination returned with a vengeance. I was (and often am) waiting until the day my assignments are due to even write them. Two of my best short stories were written in under an hour for class. So when I read McArdle's statement that we were too good in English class, it clicked. When I was a student of history I procrastinated because I was afraid of failing. I didn't feel worthy. But now I procrastinate because I know I've got this. I've always been great at English.
Not grammar, though.
So why else do we do it? UNC-Chapel Hill has a handout for their student-procrastinators that lists 9 contributing factors:
Fear of failure (always #1).
Fear of success.
Fear of losing autonomy.
Fear of being alone.
Fear of attachment.
Because we expect ourselves to be perfect.
Because we don't like our writing.
Because we're too busy.
Because it works.
Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck, links procrastination to "fixed mind set" and "growth mind set". Those with a fixed mind set believe talent is a fixed thing, so they dislike challenges because they don't feel like they'll learn anything. Those with a growth mind set love challenges because they feel like they can grow and learn from them. They don't believe talent is inherent, they believe it can be cultivated and nourished and only get better. I don't know if I totally buy this hypothesis, though. What if it really is just a fear of failure or success?
It took Camp NanoWriMo in July 2020 for me to really get my new project started. I'd been thinking about it and considering where to go with it for months, but hadn't quite had that moment where it was clicking. I didn't feel connected to it. Maybe it's because I'm still in limbo with my previous project. I'm querying Catching Fireflies and I don't want to have to stop in the midst of my new project to make edits to my old one. I need to be in the right headspace for the projects I'm working on. So I kept smacking into this brick wall with this new project because the old one is unfinished. It was so bad that I thought maybe I don't have another novel in me. I was afraid of failing before I even began.
What are the ways we procrastinate?
Ignore the task.
Over or under-estimate the degree of difficulty the task involves.
Minimize the impact that your performance may have on your future.
Substitute something important for something really important (i.e. cleaning instead of writing your paper).
Let a short break become a long one (hello, Netflix!).
Focus on one part of the task at the expense of the rest.
Spend too much time researching (UNC-CH).
So maybe it's because we were too good in English class, maybe it's because we're afraid of failure, maybe we're afraid of succeeding, or maybe it's every single one of those things. But what if it's something else?
Julia Hess credits Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird with her epiphany that procrastination is an integral part of her process. She happily admits that she puts off the act of actually writing her articles until the last minute. Hess breaks procrastinators down into two categories: active procrastinators and passive.
Active procrastinators are people who thrive under the pressure of upcoming deadlines. They choose to procrastinate because they know it will help them produce better writing. Something I found particularly profound was when she said that the active procrastinator's awareness of how they lack self-regulation means they often have stronger decision making and time management skills than they realize.
Did you hear that, my friends?
As an active procrastinator, I appreciate knowing this. We're so often told that we must be lazy (that's passive procrastinators, BTW) and that's why we put things off until the last minute. I have to tell you, though, the rush that comes with finishing a 27 page paper you started 12 hours before mere minutes of a deadline is difficult to explain. You're not berating yourself for waiting until the last minute anymore. You're elated that you beat it. You won. The feeling returns when you get an A or B on said last-minute paper. Yes, I actually did this for my senior seminar as an undergrad.
There are all kinds of tricks and tips for managing your procrastination. The Mind Tools Content Team lists 8 Anti-Procrastination Strategies:
Forgive yourself for procrastinating in the past.
Commit to the task: focus on doing not avoiding.
Promise yourself a reward.
Ask someone to check up on you.
Act as you go: complete tasks as they come up instead of putting them off.
Rephrase your internal dialogue.
Minimize distractions.
Do least appealing or most daunting task first. They call this "eat an elephant beetle". Sounds yummy, huh?
This morning I made my bed first thing. I find that when I do that I'm more likely to get things done throughout the day. It's weird that beginning the day with a task does that, but who am I to question my brain?
For me, an active procrastinator, I only do the last three things in the above list. I no longer tell myself I suck for not doing a task immediately. When I have tasks that need to be completed, I think about the time I need to do them and proceed from there. Especially when my day or week looks like this one. I prioritize the tasks and work on them one at a time. My homework will, no doubt, be done on Saturday or Sunday, but I know the discussion post has to be posted tomorrow, so I'll get on that tomorrow morning. I absolutely minimize distractions while working. I put my phone on silent or DND and place it facedown, but I don't scold myself for taking small breaks to check social media or email. I do recommend tackling the most annoying task first. Get it over with and move on, that way you can focus on the less annoying tasks without it eating away at your peace of mind.
I'd love to know some of the ways you manage your procrastination, if you have to. Leave me a comment or send me a message and let me know your best practices.
That's all I've got for this week. I hope you'll join me next week when I talk about a major writing weakness for me, pacing.
Do you have a topic you'd like for me to cover? Send me an email: sayword@saywordbeller.com
If you enjoy this podcast, please rate and subscribe or follow. I'd greatly appreciate it if you shared me with your writing friends. The more the merrier in this crazy writing life.
If you'd like to know what I'm up to between shows you can find me on Instagram and Twitter: @saybeller. You can also find this podcast on Instagram (@AboutThisWritinThing) and Twitter (@WritingThingPod).
Thank you for listening. Take care and keep writing!
Resources for episode:
McArdle, Megan. Why Writers Are the Worst Procrastinators. The Atlantic, February 12, 2014: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/why-writers-are-the-worst-procrastinators/283773/
UNC-Chapel Hill. Procrastination. https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/procrastination/
Hess, Julia. How Procrastination is Actually Part of Your Writing Process. Craft Your Content, April 20, 2017. https://www.craftyourcontent.com/procrastination-part-of-writing-process/
Mind Tools Content Team. How to Stop Procrastinating. https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_96.htm
