In the Middle of Excuses by Lorilee Guenter

 

There are many projects on my work in progress pile. I am convinced I always will have a long list of projects. In fact, at least for me, this is a good thing. If I no longer have an in progress list, I am no longer trying new things and starting new writing or art. 

There are many ideas I never started. Some of those ideas I can no longer remember even vague details. I assume they are not important for me to work on at this time. I may have missed a window to work or they may just have been random ideas. I don't need to remember every idea. They are not all for me to work on. I also have unstarted projects or unaddressed ideas that continue to surface, as if nagging me to give them attention. I think these projects, though not officially started, belong on my work in progress list because I continue to give mental space to them.

The middle contains the mess. I need to make choices with regards to this list. I have made many excuses over the years for why things are not finished. My excuses often masquerade as good reasons. The need to finish research has stalled a few projects. The need to clean up a space to spread out a sewing project is another excuse dressed up as a reason. If I really wanted to I could make space long enough to finish, instead I hold back and hold onto the excuse. If the research isn't started; if space is not made or time set into the schedule; they all become an excuse. I am good at making excuses and disguising them. A few years ago I read a book that challenged me to test each reason and consider if the reason is really an excuse. In other words, does my reason have an excuse or a series of excuses holding me back from taking the next step. Almost always, the answer for me, is yes. 

Now that I have analysed down to the root of why projects remain on my work in progress pile, I can take steps to remove the excuses and work back up the chain until I have what I need to move the process forward. I wish I could say I recognize the excuses and root them out with action. I don't until I begin to become frustrated with a lack of progress finishing anything.

Excuses are only one cause of unfinished projects taking up space in my house and on my computer. Some things are not meant to be finished. This a category for me to use because it can excuse a lack of follow through. I have writing that when I pull it out to work on, I find it is not worth finishing. It was an exercise I needed at the time I started it. It taught me something. I return these to the unfinished pile in case God prompts me to go back to them to add to them or pull out character ideas from them. Mostly these are finished because they served their purpose, I just did not recognise that purpose at that time. It is easy for me to let fear move too many things into this category. Once that happens I have moved back into the territory of excuse. 

I am a work in progress. I make excuses. I let fear hold me back. I choose to let roadblocks stall projects that need to be completed. I hold onto project too long once they need to be released. Thankfully my Creator doesn't stop part way, he knows what to hold onto and what to release. Philippians 1:6 reminds me that God doesn't stop. He works on and with His creation until it is complete. He walks with me through the messy middles of life and writing. When I let Him, He resolves the tension of the messy middle by showing me the fear and excuses holding me back. Then He guides me through them.

Today I'm letting Him guide me and teach me through the projects I work on. Tomorrow I will have a choice to continue or to try to do it my way. Each day I choose to let God remove the excuses it is easier to hear His voice and follow His leading so that when tomorrow becomes today, I will once again let Him guide and teach me.

PROCRASTIWORKING by Joylene M Bailey

 

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I learned a new word on the weekend. 

Procrastiworking.

I'm sure you've guessed what it means: avoiding the work you need to complete by doing other work instead.

I'm guilty of it. Sitting at my computer, blank page glaring, or feeling stuck in the muck of a problematic passage, I suddenly have the urge to get a drink of water. On the way to the kitchen I remember that I meant to cull through my closet last month. Now's as good a time as any. When half my closet has been dumped on the bed I come across an ancient flip phone. Could I still get cash for this thing, I wonder? Before you can say DON'T DO IT, I'm searching the internet for flip-phone forums. Which, of course, leads to spiralling into the void of YouTube videos on our late Queen's surviving Corgis.

Is any of this helpful for my work in progress?

~~~~~

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The one-day writing summit I attended on the weekend highlighted procrastiworking. Only, they described it differently. They suggested that instead of pulling your hair out as you force the right words from your brain through your fingers onto the page, do something else.

Do anything else rather than striving on a [work in progress]. You free your mind to make connections not otherwise made. 

-- Terry & Eric Fan --

writers and illustrators

Hmmm ... I'm still trying to get my head around doing anything else as being helpful. Maybe?

I was definitely on board later in the day, when someone suggested that doing something else creative helped to open up new creative pathways in the brain so that when you go back to the page, creativity for the original project is refreshed, and you can come to the problem in a new way. 

For me, that creative outlet is sewing, specifically quilting. My mood shifts to calm and joy as soon as I lay my eyes on the fabric I'm about to use. And, at whatever stage I'm at in the quilting process, whether choosing the fabric colours & patterns to match or contrast, cutting out or assembling the pieces, machine-stitching or hand-sewing, my mind is busy working out puzzles. Puzzles in the quilt itself, puzzles in my life and in my work. So that when I go back to the work on the page, often the tweaks I need to refine and perfect the problematic passage are right there at the front of my mind.    

It might seem like procrastinating but in actuality it's still working on the WIP.

~~~~~

I like this positive spin on the term procrastiworking. Not only does it take away the burdensome guilt of doing something other than writing, it excites and fulfills me to know that while my hands might be doing something else, my brain can still be working on my writing project. I'm not wasting time. Maybe not even when I'm searching out the names of the late Queen's two living Corgis.

Incidentally, Muick and Sandy are well and happy, and living in the home of Prince Andrew, Sarah Duchess of York, and five Norfolk Terriers.  

~~~~~

All photos above courtesy of Pixabay.com

Joy doesn't have any Corgis, but she does have a Swiss Mountain Puppy, and a Cowboy who loves them both. She writes and procrastiworks from north of Pigeon Lake, Alberta. Find more of her Joy-infused view on the world at Scraps of Joy.

   

Getting There - by Susan Barclay

Drinking in the view at at the end of the day. Who could fail to be inspired?

I planned to work on this post while my husband and I enjoyed a cottage rental this week. Pffft. And when we returned home on the 30^th, I thought I could get it done that evening. Pffft again. We arrived to find computer issues that needed attention. So I am writing this June 1^st and back-dating it. 

We were asked to showcase a work-in-progress, so that’s what I’m  doing. In fact, I used part of our vacation to work on my WIP. I spent the mornings writing while my husband read, then we took the afternoon to explore the area, and watched a movie together in the evenings before heading to the beach to catch one of God’s glorious sunsets.

I call myself an eclectic writer. I write children’s picture books, personal essays, short stories for adults, poetry. But my focus this year has been on the novel I started ten years ago. It’s a work of contemporary fiction that deals with family dynamics, and particularly the difficult relationship between a mother and daughter. Themes of understanding and forgiveness are also explored. The idea was sparked when I threw together a short piece for a critique group that was meeting for the first time. One of the participants that night thought the nugget contained the makings of a novel. 

I gulped. It did?

So here I am ten years later, still working on it. Granted, I’ve taken long breaks since beginning, the longest stemming from writer’s block. I’d come to point B and knew where point D was, but I wasn’t quite sure how to get to point C. Thankfully, the block has broken and I am moving forward. I don’t work from a detailed outline and tend to go with the flow, an approach that has both its challenges and its joys.

Over the holiday, I worked on revisions for the first ten chapters. I still have a number of chapters to edit before I pick up the story and work my way through to the end. While I had hoped to complete the novel by the end of June, it looks like I'll have to extend my deadline to the end of the year. The main thing is to keep pressing forward.

Here’s a teaser from early in the novel to whet your appetite for more. In this scene, the mother and daughter are having a tense telephone conversation. The story is told in first person, from the daughter’s point of view. 

 I felt sick to my stomach, but somehow I couldn’t stop myself. I wasn’t like this with anyone but Mom. “Nothing’s eating me,” I said. I tapped my fingers on the arm of my chair. “I’m tired, that’s all. Tired of pandering to your emotional insecurities.” Mom drew in a sharp breath, but I pressed on. “Ben and Jackie wouldn’t have asked you to go if they didn’t want you. So, go. Enjoy your grandchildren and have a good time. Is that so hard? Does it have to be such a big deal?”

“Somebody got up on the wrong side of bed,” she answered. “Maybe I should talk to you later when you’re feeling more reasonable.”

“I think this is as good as it gets today, Mother.”

I heard the phone click. “Mother?” I held the phone away from my ear and looked at it in surprise, then brought it close again. "Mother?” The dial tone sounded an accusation. “She hung up on me!”

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For more of my writing, please visit www.susan-barclay.ca