Productive Procrastination - How to be busy and achieve

One of my first blogs was about how I overcome procrastination. How I avoid the 1 thing that will probably yield the most results. Examples of the 1 thing:

·       Resolving personal conflicts – having that one conversation with that one person because they’ve been stressing me out

·       Pitching to agents and publishers – to find that one publisher who has the power to get my story out into the world

·       Building personal wealth – one day I’ll call the bank about moving to a higher rate savings account since doing it online is not working …

Since this website is about me being a writer, I won’t provide any financial advice (not being a financial adviser and all) or provide any recent examples of resolving personal conflict. At least not today :P

However I will focus on all the ways I have procrastinated – productively – on my writing :-)

What do I mean by productive procrastination?

It means I’m still writing, just not doing the one thing I need to get my stories out there – get an agent. Instead I’ve been doing other things that I’ve read to help boost my profile as a writer. Excluding that one blog that will one day go viral I’m sure :P

Example 1: Prequel story

I read somewhere to encourage people to sign up to your website (please join my mailing list!) you should offer them something in return, eg a free short story. So I wrote a short story of my antagonist’s past to share with you all.

At the same time…

I’ve set myself a goal of submitting to 5 writing competitions in Australia (where I live). As it got closer to the end of the year I realised I had only submitted thrice to publishers. (Needless to say I was unsuccessful). So I thought I may as well submit my antagonist’s short story to Faber Writing Academy’s Write a Novel scholarship (run by Allen & Unwin Australia).

Unfortunately I did not get the scholarship, but I was offered a place in the program!

Aside from learning the craft, the program has guest speakers including published authors, an agent and publishers, as well as the opportunity to publish your story in the Faber Anthology. The question did cross my mine for a moment – should I focus on my first story or write another one?

Given my penchant for procrastinating, the answer was a no brainer.

Not only had my antagonist’s story started to write itself with me eager to find out how she turned out the way she did, but the opportunity to learn more has always been a weakness. So I went into debt and joined the course.

Example 2: Writing short stories

With my goal of submitting to at least 5 things a year and with a limited number of competitions in Australia where I can submit my first manuscript, I noticed a few short story competitions.

I had done a short story course well over 10 years ago, so I did what most competitions say – dust off those old stories and submit them.

Well after rewriting it.

I physically cringed as I re-read the original piece and realised I vacillated between past and present tense throughout the piece, the uncharacteristic remarks made and the lack of description of setting and action. I must have had a very generous tutor and classmates because none of them ever pointed these ‘areas for development’ to me.

Most short story competitions ask for writing anywhere between 2,000 to 5,000 words, sometimes even 500 (flash fiction). For my second novel, I try and write 3,000 words a week – sometimes successfully, sometimes not. As a result I had built up my writing muscle. So I sat my bottom down at my desk and re-wrote the whole piece.

I submitted, and forgot about it. There were three more submissions I had marked in my calendar to complete that month, in addition to writing my second manuscript and attending writing classes.

Then a week ago I got an email saying I was long listed.

:O :O :O

For anyone who’s submitted, you know you don’t always hear back from places because they receive a landslide of submissions they only advise successful candidates. Similar to workforce jobs. After receiving only rejections over the last few years, I genuinely thought it was a mistake and waited for the email advising me thus.

It still hasn’t come.

(The competition is still in progress. Once the winner is announced I’ll attached a link to the website ;-) )

And let’s ignore the rejection I got the other day for another piece of writing …

Example 3: Learning as much as possible

Last year I had started to build an agent list. It’s a bit like looking for jobs you want to apply for except you not only have to narrow it down to:

1/ agents looking for books in your genre (eg that’s contemporary women’s fiction for me) and

2/ they usually want specific elements (eg mother-daughter relationships, migrant stories, toxicity)

This can often change depending on the market. Totally fair since agents sell your story to publishers and if readers/ buyers taste change, what they sell will change too.

After trawling through QueryTracker for a few hours for a month, checking out agents’ socials and their website to discover what exactly they want, I was depleted.

So I started procrastinating again.

Productively of course.

I bought

·       Get Signed by Lucinda Halpern – It was super useful and helped me to see my story in a more commercial light

·       The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman – still to be read. Many writers and people in the industry rave about her, so I’m hoping for more tips to build my confidence.

I signed up for yet another Pitching course, signed up for a copy writing course to learn how to hook people in. The latter have helped me learn about writing blog if nothing else (LOL!)

Have these yielded results? Not yet! But As part of my trawling / stalking agents’ socials/sites they do say you only have one chance to make a good first impression. I may as well try to get my pitch as best as I can right?

I would love to end with – and now I have an agent! – but that is not the case at this point in time. When I do, I will no doubt write a blog on it!

Overall

As I look back on the last five months, instead of berating myself for not progressing my overall goal of getting an agent and being published, I am going to take my procrastination attempts as mini wins. For example:

·       Writing a whole second novel and being supported by Lauren Chater through Faber Writing Academy

·       Being long listed in a story competition  

·       Learning about pitching and marketing. As I write this I realise the one thing I could have done is hire a professional… maybe in the future :-)

Sometimes doing the little things, even if it’s not the one big thing, can take you in the direction you want to go.

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