I am in the process of trying to find a writing rhythm again.
Now that I’m officially on deadline for Everyday Leadership my mind has shifted into this somewhat familiar overdrive mode where I’m either actively thinking about the book that I should be writing or thinking that I should be thinking about it.
It may sound terrible, but it’s not an all unpleasant feeling.
I have learned about myself that I tend to be most focused (professionally at least) when I feel like I’ve backed myself into a corner and the only way out of that corner is to do the damn thing. A book deadline has a way of narrowing the frame of my anxiety to mere project anxiety, as opposed to existential anxiety.
For better and worse, though, project anxiety activates my Very Strong Desire to Procrastinate.
If it feels good to write your way out of a corner, my subconscious seems to say, it will feel even better to do it when you have less time. All of which means that much of my “writing time” at the moment is in fact time spent thinking about doing the thing rather than doing the thing.
I am assembling my new electric bike in the garage. I am driving the car through the pastel soap at the carwash. I am going to the grocery store to buy strawberries.
I am not typing.
I am engaged in what I’ve come to think of as productive procrastination where I focus intently on anything except The Bear that is writing project.
It is useful to know that other people feel similarly, as
recently wrote:“What percentage of your so-called writing time would you say is really spent procrastinating writing? For me, I’d say it’s around 80 percent. Eighty percent avoiding it, sitting in the chair but not doing it, reading something I “have to read” in order to do it, beating myself up for not doing it, promising myself I’ll do better the next day.”
Now take that number for what it is, but 80% of the time is 4 days out of 5.
To me, that’s 4 days of thinking about it. Outlining. Structuring. Emailing myself notes and thoughts. Looking at the tables of contents of other books to see how others have organized similar projects. Reading. Tinkering. 1 day (maybe less?) of actual writing.
That is to say, I am mostly engaged in activity, not action.
For now, that’s ok. I’m observing this interplay between activity and action, trying to let the activity lead me to the right process for this book. But I know that sooner or later the balance needs to shift, and I’ll need to simply type the thing out in order to really get started.