This journey from being a procrastinating perfectionist to published author is one filled with lots of bumps and pitfalls, but I’m learning plenty of important lessons along the way. So far, I’ve learned that my perfectionism has been the single biggest obstacle holding me back from achieving my dream of being a published author. More specifically, I’ve learned that symptoms of my perfectionism, along with other things, act as barriers to productivity. Knowing how to identify these barriers is the first step in developing a productive writing routine. The next is learning how to be compassionately objective. Without doubt, we are our own worst critics. We see only our failures…
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Confessions of a Writer … in isolation
Writing has always been a solitary activity, but being a writer in isolation has presented many new challenges. The world is a different place than it was when I published my last blog post a month ago. People are getting sick, many have died, and the rest of us are living vastly different lives in an effort to stop the spread of this pandemic. Children are learning from home, many adults lucky enough to still be in work have had to set up home offices, and routines have drastically changed as family units attempt to juggle competing priorities. In my last blog post, Confessions of an Unproductive Writer, I explored my…
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Confessions of an unproductive writer
In my previous post, Confessions of a Writer Procrastinating Perfectionist, I shared details of a recent revelation—I discovered that my tendency to procrastinate didn’t mean I was a lazy, pathetic wannabe writer. Instead, it was a symptom of perfectionism. It was FEAR holding me back from fully committing to making my writing and publishing dreams a reality. Well, crikey! Once I knew what my problem was, I decided to get off my butt and do something about it. Anxiety’s like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you very far. JODI PICOULT Barriers to productivity While reading Hillary Rettig’s The 7 Secrets of the Prolific: How to…
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Confessions of a … procrastinating perfectionist
I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching these past few weeks after spending the summer in a funk despite hoping I’d make significant headway towards my writing and publishing goals—which, as it turns out, were nothing but vague dreams. This time last year, I was coming down from the high of having smashed out the first draft of a 65,000-word manuscript in nineteen days (read about that experience here)—and yet, twelve months later, I’m nowhere near where I wanted to be on its second draft. Despite this, over the summer I was regularly choosing to binge on Netflix and Stan rather than add another word to my manuscript, which only…
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From blank page to complete first draft in 19 days!
Libby M Iriks shares details about her current work-in-progress and how she took the seed of an idea from blank page to complete first draft in only nineteen days.
