How I stopped procrastinating and finished my book

I have finally written a second book of short stories. I say finally because this has been in the making for about eight or more years. The manuscript has survived two rejections, about three different editors and has changed so completely that it is not the book I originally imagined. My friend Leeanne says I shouldn’t be critical of myself that it took eight years (thanks Lee). My illustrator friend Colin was so sweet when he told me, “it’s not like you were sitting around doing nothing. You raised four kids.” (If you’re reading this Colin, you don’t know how many times I have appreciated those words). But I have to face the truth. I put away this manuscript for years at a time. I was always thinking about it, but I usually choose other activities instead of working on it. Some of those things were great choices, like putting my children first. Some choices were not so great, like binge eating while watching Netflix or scrolling through social media. According to Tim Urban’s wildly popular Ted Talk “Inside the mind of a master procrastinator”, this undeserved fun is the dark playground. I’ve spent an insane amount of time in the dark playground. It’s not a happy place because you know you shouldn’t be there. I highly recommend watching Tim Urban’s Ted Talk. Inside the mind of a master procrastinator As a matter of fact, make sure your teenaged children watch it. When they’re gaming or scrolling through their phones, it’s much more fun to ask, “are you in the dark playground again?” instead of “have your finished your homework?”

What pushed me to finish this book and stop procrastinating is I got a job as a project coordinator. Although this position has absolutely nothing to do with my writing, it changed the way I thought about how I manage a writing project. Sure, there is a lot of advice out there on how to create space for writing and how many words to write a day and so on. These are all valuable, but it occurred to me after getting this job that writing a book is a project. If there is a start, there is an end. It is easy to procrastinate on something like writing a book. There is no immediate gratification. It could be years before there is any reward. There is no deadline to panic over. And so it was for me. I’ll do it tomorrow. When I’m inspired. When I have time. When I’m on vacation. Tim Urban’s talk is a reminder that there aren’t that many squares on the board, the runway only gets shorter, tomorrows aren’t guaranteed (you get the picture).

I knew if I wanted to ever get this book out, I had to follow the steps I follow in my job. I needed results. To get those results, I had to set deadlines. I had to set an end date to deliver the manuscript to the publisher instead of asking for more time. I was past the fun, creating aspect. This was work and I had to treat it like a job. This all seems embarrassingly obvious, but if you’re a procrastinator with no panic-driven deadline, it’s much more fun to go kayaking.

Of course, there were other factors contributing to this completed manuscript. One was the pandemic. When we were on lockdown, I reluctantly pulled out my computer and searched for the manuscript. I say reluctantly because there were many other interesting things to do like binge watch pandemic news. I forced myself to re-visit these long lost stories. Second, I won the Mississauga Arts Award for Established Literary Art in 2022. I’d submitted one of the stories from that manuscript. Winning refuelled me. I thought, well, someone else likes this. Maybe I should push a little harder and finish it. It also pushed me to find a publisher. I also got a life coach in 2022 who kept trying to tell me to focus on one project at a time. She kept asking which project was the most important. I kept saying all of them. I had a novel in mind, a children’s book in mind. I’d recently started writing poetry. I stubbornly refused to listen. One morning having been on this new project coordinator job for a few months, I woke up with a moment of clarity. The life coach’s words came back to me and I realized that no matter how important I felt all my various writing projects were, I could only focus on one at a time. https://kristawilliamson.com

It boils down to this. Watch Tim Urban’s Ted Talk. We have less time than we think. Treat your book like a project. It has a start and a finish. Plan and stick to your deadlines as much as you can. Don’t read this if you’re one of those people who churn out a book a year. When I grow up, I want to be like you.