seven deadly writing sins

I was thinking about the self-created issues that get in the way of writing. I don't mean life issues or even a day job that take me away from my book, but stuff I make up in my head that gets in the way. Here are a few:

* Procrastination/Distraction (aka, Netflix)

* Impatience (leads to inefficient use of time and general crazy head)

* Boredom (you're bored with your book? well fix it. you're boring yourself.)

* Ignoring the blessings of the muse (yes there is a lot of work to do and it looks ugly right now, but there might be some very lovely things about this book if you would just sit down and WRITE IT already.)

* Envy (yes, I know, it's in the Big Seven but I think it belongs here, too. We do harm to ourselves as writers when we compare our in-progress work to the finished, polished, published works of other writers. It's not fair to us or our works in progress.)

* Avoidance (Just sit down, just sit down in the chair and write. Just do it. Pretty please. No–no more internet research! No more note-taking or outlining! No!)

* Giving up

They are all thematically linked, of course. I was thinking of procrastination lately (most likely while procrastinating). I came across a meditation CD that would supposedly cure a person of this sin. But it begs the question – how would I not procrastinate from actually listening to the CD? It's a conundrum.

I think I've been suffering most keenly from…wait, from ALL OF THESE. SIMULTANEOUSLY. The one that I realized recently was Avoidance, which is vaguely different from Procrastination. For me, Procrastination is "okay, time to write. Oh, but I'm hungry, why don't I have a snack first. And while I have my snack, I'll watch Angel on Netflix. And when I'm done with that, I'll get another snack and browse Netflix for random movies."

While procrastination is obviously bad, avoidance can be just as insidious – though it is dressed up in the best intentions. For example, I have a strong urge to scour library shelves and online catalogs in search for books to read to "research" my book. This results in a stockpile of books that I intended to read for research – which I have yet to do. I haven't had time, I'm too busy trolling the internet for other books I must read! If I were actually reading these books, that would be called research, fair enough. But the endless searching is Avoidance – maybe even Resistance to sitting down and getting any work done? It creates real problems – it takes time away from writing, it adds these to-read books to my already-overwhelming to do list, AND – most dangerous of all – I'm convincing myself that I CAN'T write this book right now. Apparently I just don't have the correct words or information or something or other in me, and I need to spend time SEARCHING for it before I start writing. I could search forever. I could find the most perfect research books. But even if I were to read these illuminating volumes, that still leaves the writing of my book. Which I have been avoiding.

So what am I going to do about this? I'll report my plan of attack in my next post.