We writers are incredibly creative. Over the last two decades working with writers, I’ve heard just about every excuse for NOT writing you can imagine. They make sense at the time, but the problem with excuses is time passes and you don’t write. You need to stop making excuses and get down to business.
You stay in the same place wondering why you’re not writing and begin to doubt whether or not you’ll ever write.
You’ll even trick yourself into thinking you’re writing when really you’re not. Here are the top three ways writers make ourselves believe we’re writing when really we’re avoiding as strongly as if we never picked up the pen.
Are you telling yourself any of these things? It’s time to stop making excuses and start moving forward with your writing.
You’ll tell yourself the idea is marinating
This is an amazing way to write without writing. We do need time to mull over ideas to let them grow and develop. Problem is, marinating and procrastinating look very similar.
Adam Grant, author of Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, explains in his TED talk The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers how procrastination actually makes you more creative:
He found those who begin a project and then push off working on it for a little while, think more creatively than those who jump right in and finish quickly. This kind of procrastination is what I’d call marinating. The people who continue to wait, sometimes never finishing, do not receive the benefits of the creative bump. These are the true procrastinators.
It’s easy to slip into the latter and never really finish your work.
How to stop making excuses:
Structure your writing so you can finish. Start writing immediately and let your ideas start to form. Then when you take a break, your ideas will marinate. Choose a date not too far in the future to complete your writing.
Make yourself accountable to finish on time by telling a friend or joining a writing or mastermind group to keep you on track.
You’re still researching
You’ve taken careful notes, marked important passages with color coded Post-Its. Now you’re trying to figure out what order to write it in. There are a couple more books you want to read. Maybe you’ve outlined a bit (or a lot). Or maybe, you wonder, you could start writing one section, but every time you begin to write, you think of another point you need to know more about before you can start.
Sound familiar?
Research dances with your writing. Back and forth. One bit here, another there. You move one piece forward, add the other in rhythm. Your writing helps shape your research and vice versa. If you’re only researching and never writing, you’re not really writing.
I often say reading is the same as writing, but that doesn’t apply when you have something to say and instead of writing something down on paper, you keep burying your nose in a book (or website or microfiche or whatever your research distraction) and never enter the stages of writing.
If you’re stuck in research mode, take a big step back from your books and notes and open a notebook. Start writing your ideas for the book and just let them flow. Don’t worry what comes first or second, let the information packed in you brain guide you. Trust yourself.
How to stop making excuses:
I met with a woman a couple years ago to help her plan her book. She had ideas in her head but hadn’t written the first thing. I told her to start writing immediately. She wrote while I quietly waited for her.
We began with ten minutes. I asked her to write down every idea she had for the book. No judgments. No worries. She just had to write them down. Then I asked her to put them in the order she thought they would go in the book. Another ten minutes of writing.
At the end of the hour, she not only had a clear idea of what she wanted to write, but an outline with examples, research and stories under each chapter heading.
Now it’s your turn. Focus on different parts of your writing for ten minutes each. Outlining. Organizing. Freewriting. See how well it works for you.
You tell yourself you’re not [FILL IN THE BLANK] enough
You’re not good enough. No one wants to hear your story. You don’t know how to write. You’ve never had any formal writing training. You worry you won’t be able to do it. You’ll be criticized. You’ll write something stupid.
Ad infinitum. You can fall into an ugly loop of reasons why you shouldn’t write your book, pitch your story or commit the poem running through your head to paper.
That’s just it isn’t it? As long as the words are jumbled in your head, you don’t have to take responsibility for them. You don’t have to make a commitment to yourself or your writing. You’re always on the verge of thinking about writing but as long as you don’t write, you never fully get over your fear of not being [FILL IN THE BLANK]..
Maybe you tell yourself you’ll get to it as soon as you’re finished [FILL IN THE BLANK].
Walking the dog. Making dinner. Picking the kids up from school. Taking a quick nap. After a
ll you had a long day at work and you need to rest.
Again… ad infinitum.
When the reasons begin to run, it’s a sign you’re fooling yourself.
Look, I get it. No one is good at everything. I often imagine my knowledge as a grid. Parts of the grid are packed, full of ideas, data and creativity. Others are empty. Some have bits and pieces, but they’re jumbled and full of holes.
It’s anxiety provoking to think you’re not wholly and fully knowledgeable, but here’s the thing. You can learn what you don’t know. You can research (refer to Stop Making Excuses Two so you don’t research yourself into another circle). You can ask for help. You can throw caution to the wind and try something new, different, big, fat and scary.
How to stop making excuses:
First, remind yourself there’s nothing wrong with not knowing. Second, go out and begin to learn. And how do you best learn how to write? Start writing. Just ten minutes.
It sounds quick and easy when you read it here, but it takes practice to push through your fears and do anyway. Do something every day that pushes your boundaries and fills the holes in your knowledge grid just a little bit.
