I spend a lot of my free time hanging out in writing/writers forums trying to discover ways to get writers motivated and inspired to write. And I’ve been met with a lot of resistance, actually. There are many people out there that truly believe if you can’t motivate yourself to write or if you procrastinate on a writing project, it means you really don’t want to write. Because–as they have said–you only procrastinate when you have to do something but you don’t want to.
And this morning I received another comment from someone that got me thinking. They said:
“If you have to force yourself to write/write a novel, maybe it’s not the right thing for you.”
I stopped for a minute after reading this comment and really thought about what they were saying. Then I started to wonder how other procrastinating writers felt.
Here’s one of the forum strings: http://forum.writersdigest.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=18323&posts=19#M182146
What do you think fellow procrastinating writers? Do you agree with what these people are saying? That if you procrastinate it means you really don’t want to do it?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Yo Jen,
But if it’s meant to be it’ll happen. So you can walk away from it and if it’s meant to be you will come back to it but it doesn’t mean you (or me) are a failure if you walk away for now. Also, I guess I’m mixed on the force-writing theory. I agree that it should flow naturally to be good but then again sometimes you have to force-write to write just your morning pages and that then helps versus not writing anything at all.
I guess your thought of the day has many parameters.
-E
That’s very true, E. Sometimes you DO have to force yourself to write, even if you don’t have time or can’t think of anything to write about.
However, I am also a firm believer in the Universe and as you said, if it’s meant to happen, it will when the time is right.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
-jb
Writing is a scary thing. You are putting your soul out there to be judged for better or worse. Does that mean we don’t want to do it? I don’t think so. I think we don’t want to risk failing at our dream or having someone else tell us we shouldn’t be writing. As long as we procrastinate, we are in control.