When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her. - Adrienne Rich

Keep Writing: Procrastination and Research

You are winding down to your last two days of this course. Hopefully, you’ve been able to sketch out a very rough outline of a story you will tell. You’ve worked hard, so I want you to take today to explore the things that may interfere with your momentum. For this exercise, you will create two lists:

First, I want you to write a list of every reason you might stop writing. Don’t let these obstacles hide in the dark - bring them into the light so you can work with them over the course of your writing. They aren’t going away, so learn more about them today so you are ready for them when they come up.

Second, I want you to create a ‘research’ list. The diversion of “doing research’ is something that interferes with most writers and is a huge obstacle to your goal of getting the words on the page. It happens to all of us; we are planning to write, but stumble across something that we can't quite recall or need to know more about. We stop adding to our word count and start Googling things or ordering books. 

Yes -- you likely need to do research to write your story, but you don’t need to nail everything down before you write your first draft. What I want you to do today is to create a “to be researched later” list. Write down everything you don’t know enough about to write your story. Try to think of as much as you can, but know this will be an ever growing list of things over the course of this project. The list can also include things that have faded from your own memory. As you move through this writing project and feel the need to stop writing to clarify some confusion, add that confusion/need for clarification to this list and get back to writing.

Keeping the list will let your mind know, “Yes, I will get back to that later.” It will also help you to stay focused and push through that challenging first draft. We will get started on your plan for that tomorrow!

Tomorrow we will do some planning to get you to your first draft!

Great work!

Who can say how many lives have been saved by books? -- Michelle Cliff