Why Are You Really Procrastinating?

Rough draft on my WIP, but yes, I liked doing it. I'd been stew­ing on this scene for TWO days!! Ridiculous I know. But I read your post and it, like with the oth­ers com­ment­ing here it seems, hit a cord. Thank you for get­ting me off to a good start!

“Are you fin­ished?” Celia’s abduc­tor nod­ded at the untouched steam­ing tea on the table. She shook her head, then picked it up and sipped it. He took up her empty sand­wich wrap­pings and threw them away.
“You are a neat freak,” she com­mented.
“Get some rest. We’ll leave right after dark.”
“Are we going to be up all night like last night?”
He hes­i­tated. “Yes.” Then he lay down on the couch, crossed his arms and closed his eyes.
Celia sighed, fin­ished her tea and threw away her empty cup. She went into the bed­room and lay on the bed, and even though she was pos­i­tive he wouldn’t come in till it was time to leave, she left the light on.
A strong sense of being watched woke her. She sat up fast and found him stand­ing just inside the door­way. “Is it time?” she asked as she swung her feet to the floor and started to rise.
“No.” He didn’t move. He didn’t say any­thing more, but his face radi­ated cold again, dark and glacial, like a snow­storm. He stayed there star­ing at her so long goose bumps broke out all over her body, a pre­mo­ni­tion, a warn­ing. She stood and faced him. What else could she do? She had no defense, noth­ing to fight him off with if he’d changed his mind about what he would do to, or with, her. All she had were her gut-linked wits.
“Have you changed your mind?”
He frowned and glared at her. “About what?”
“You know. About me. Let me go. Tie me up and leave me some­where I won’t be found until after you’re safe. I can stall them even, if you want.”
His face showed no emo­tion, no inkling that he’d heard one word she’d said. “Please. I don’t want to die.” She didn’t dare look away or bow her head as she wanted to. She prayed the lock on their gaze would keep him from rash behav­ior, willed him to accept her com­pro­mise. For now she under­stood while he’d been out he had reeval­u­ated her drain on his safety, what a drag she was on his abil­ity to move in stealth mode. “What hap­pened out there to change your mind?”
That got a reac­tion. Just a flicker across his fore­head, but she’d seen the flash of it before he could hide it. “Please, I don’t want to die,” she whis­pered. Her throat closed in on famil­iar fear and slid her right into that other hell. “Please, oh please let me go.”

Thanks for the feed­back every­body! :D All of your writ­ing is really good. I'll take every­thing you said into account to make my story better.

WOW! I've been fol­low­ing you for a while but this is prob­a­bly the best blog post I've read on this blog!!

I did enjoy writ­ing today (wrote a bit over 15 mins), but it's likely due to the fact that I've had a good day and I'm not rush­ing any­where right now.

Excerpt from today's writing:

Rahul pulled the hood over his head and secured it with a pin under his chin. His black shroud loosely wrapped his body. He was sweat­ing pro­fusely.
Come on, I’ve done this before.
Some dis­tance behind him, fifty men stood hid­ing behind a huge rock. This oper­a­tion was any­thing but safe. If they were going to walk away from this place with the right man­u­scripts, he needed as many of them alive as pos­si­ble.
He looked back and made sure they were all a safe dis­tance away.
“Well, here we go,” he mut­tered.
Then he lit the fuse.

A shrouded fig­ure appeared in the entrance, hur­ried in, and then stopped, appar­ently notic­ing Idan.
“Ah, great, we have com­pany” the man’s voice bel­lowed in the cave. More Shads piled in right behind him, unsheath­ing their swords.
“Tell you what, you guys can just turn around, and go home, and I promise you nobody gets hurt,” Idan said, loud and clear.
The Shad laughed, “Brave chicken they got here!” His eyes glis­tened bright red. “Get him, guys.”

The boy heard the com­mo­tion long before he saw the light from their torches. The sound of metal cling­ing against metal. Muffled voices. A famil­iar voice yelped, “Don’t you touch that!”
Idan?

(I'm try­ing to write one big story from the per­spec­tive of mul­ti­ple peo­ple who are involved in it… Thus the breaks in the story)

'I'd just set­tled into my easy chair, ah, an old fella needs a good chair to sit down in and sleep in but ssh, don't tell the lit­tle ones that. They laugh enough at old grandpa as it is. I skooch down and find the sweet spot in my chair and then lis­ten. Just lis­ten. The crick­ets sing their sweet good­night songs, the faint hoot of night-calling birds drifts up over the banks and the shush of the sea behind that, more dis­tant, lulls me to sleep.'

Gosh Joe, that was interesting!

A really good exper­i­ment. I found, first of all that writ­ing that way, caused me to fade out all over the place — my mind wan­dered to every imag­in­able avenue of jobs need­ing doing, out­stand­ing bills, etc — and yet when I did come back to the writ­ing I was still relaxed. And sec­ond, I wrote in new ways. I would never have "thought" of some of those turns of phrase normally.

One of the things I learned while writ­ing my YA novel and hav­ing to meet a dead­line with my writ­ing coach was, just write the bones of the chap­ter. That's what the rough draft is about any­way. Revision is where the story evolves into what you envi­sioned it to be.

I'm eleven (almost twelve) and I'm work­ing on a story. It's a post-apocalyptic story sort of like "The Hunger Games" and I could use some advice from peo­ple older and more expe­ri­enced than I am. Here's the first chap­ter. Let me know what you think! :D

Chapter 1

I live in a sex­ist coun­try.
It is a place where girls do all the work­ing, men do what­ever they please, and girls get sent to jail for the rest of their life for the tini­est thing.
But that’s not the worst of it.
Each year, President Hunter has a com­pe­ti­tion called The Maze of Doom. It’s been going on for twenty years. Let me tell you about it.
The Maze of Doom is a huge maze filled with dan­gers. Ten dif­fer­ent girls rang­ing from the age of twelve to eigh­teen race to the end of the maze. Their prize is a sin­gle wish. But no girl has sur­vived yet. Girls are allowed one weapon each, pro­vided by President Hunter. Girls can make tem­po­rary alliances, but they can also kill each other. It’s a grue­some maze.
Some, if they are in the maze, plan to wish for riches or fame. Others plan to wish for their sis­ters to get out of jail for not pol­ish­ing their boss’s shoes exactly right.
I have a dif­fer­ent wish.
I have been ran­domly cho­sen by the country’s leader to be entered in The Maze of Doom.
Our country’s leader is revolt­ing. He made The Maze of Doom for enter­tain­ment. He likes the idea of girls killing each other. For him, it’s just one less worker to pay.
But I have to sur­vive the maze to make my wish. As I said, no girl has sur­vived yet. I plan to change that, too.

Today is the day I say good­bye to my fam­ily and leave for “Maze Training”. Really, it’s to see how good each girl is so the coun­try can place their bets to see who will sur­vive the longest.
My mom starts to cry as I pull on my boots. My dad puts his arm around her. He tries to com­fort her, but the tears keep on com­ing.
“Don’t cry, Mom,” I say. “I’ll be fine.” But even I can’t promise that.
My mom hugs me and bawls. Dots appear on my shirt’s sleeve.
“Carrie, she’ll be fine,” My dad straight­ens his glasses and tries to hide his water­ing eyes. “You know our Clelia. She’s one tough cookie.”
My mom attempts to talk as my dad hugs her again.
“My daugh­ter!” she cries. “My only daugh­ter! In The Maze! She’s only four­teen.”
“I know,” He says. “I know.”
I hug each of them again.
“I love you guys,” I say in a fal­ter­ing voice. “But when I come back, every­thing will be bet­ter.”
I hear a knock on the door. My dad goes to answer it.
“Hello,” I hear him say. “Won’t you come in?”
“Actually, I’m here for Clelia,” A female voice answers. No sur­prise there. All of President Hunter’s employ­ees are female.
I hug my mom one last time and walk into the kitchen. It only took a few steps to get from the liv­ing room to the kitchen.
“Ah,” The young woman stand­ing in the door­way ges­tures for me to come out­side with her. “There she is. Come.”
I hug my dad, look around our sin­gle floor house (or hut, as I like to call it) one last time, and walk out­side. My mom won’t stop cry­ing.
“Mom,” I say. “Please don’t worry about me. Besides, you won’t have to keep won­der­ing what’s going on. You can read the whole thing in The Mazeazines.”
The Mazeazines are mag­a­zines all about The Maze. Once The Maze of Doom starts, the entire thing will be watched and typed for the whole coun­try to read. They don’t help much though, since the reporters make every­thing more dra­matic. Even though we can never see what’s going on, I can tell that that’s not what’s actu­ally hap­pen­ing.
“Clelia!” The woman stands by her car, tap­ping her foot impa­tiently.
“I love you,” I say before walk­ing to the men­ac­ing, black, car.
The woman opens the car door. I get inside and wave at my par­ents until they dis­ap­pear from view com­pletely.
I remain silent the entire trip to President Hunter’s main build­ing.
An hour later, the black car pulls up to a tow­er­ing sky­scraper.
“Here we are,” The woman says in a bored voice. “Follow me.”
The tone of her voice makes it obvi­ous that she has done this same rou­tine for quite some time.
I fol­lowed her down the hall and into the ele­va­tor. I gasped. There were 70 dif­fer­ent but­tons. The woman had to go onto her toes to reach the 30 but­ton.
The ele­va­tor went up and made a ding noise.
The woman entered the big, cir­cu­lar, room. I fol­lowed her and saw five dif­fer­ent peo­ple. I rec­og­nized four of them from pre­vi­ous Mazes. They were the train­ers. The strength, agility, climb­ing, and weaponry train­ers. The other I knew just from liv­ing in this coun­try. President Hunter. The evil leader that started this maze.
“Good,” He said. “You finally arrived. As you know, the con­tes­tants aren’t allowed to see each other until the maze begins, so you will be pri­vately trained in this room. The reporter should be here any sec­ond now.”
As if on cue, the ele­va­tor dinged again, and two women appeared. One car­ried a cam­era to take pic­tures, the other, a note­book and pen.
“If every­one is ready, the train­ing shall begin!” President Hunter stepped back. The cam­er­a­woman started snap­ping pic­tures and the reporter started scrib­bling furi­ously.
There were four sec­tions of the room I could go to. Each sec­tion had its own equip­ment. I decided to start with the worst and work my way up. I’m ter­ri­ble at phys­i­cal activ­i­ties, like climb­ing, and lift­ing weights, but I’m good at run­ning and using small weapons like dag­gers for hunt­ing or build­ing things.
I started at the strength train­ing.
“Hi,” The female strength trainer said. “My name’s Candace. Nice to meet you.” Her leg and arm mus­cles were very vis­i­ble. You could tell she stayed in shape. And besides look­ing strong, she seemed like she could be decently nice, even friendly, unlike most work­ers here. I don’t blame most of them for being un-friendly, the way they get paid.
I took her hand and shook it.
“So,” Candace said. “Would you like to start with the weights, the sit-ups and push-ups, or bag car­ry­ing?”
I selected the bag car­ry­ing.
“Come on, Clelia!” Candace encour­aged me. “You can do it!”
I had car­ried six bags of bricks across the room on my shoul­ders already. Four more to go.
“Almost done,” Candace kept yelling. “Two more! Just two more!”
It was nice that Candace was help­ing me, but it was a lit­tle annoy­ing.
“That’s it! One last one! And, you’re done!”
I wiped the sweat off my fore­head and walked back over to Candace.
“That was really good,” She said hand­ing me a towel for my sweat. “Do you need some water?”
I nod­ded my head grate­fully, still gasp­ing for breath. I took the bot­tled water from Candace and gulped down almost half.
“Let’s move on to the weights.”
Candace handed me two weights. They must’ve both weighed at least twenty pounds.
“I want you to lift one at a time. So raise the right one first with your arm locked, then do the same thing with your left arm. Then lift them both at the same time. Got that?”
I nod­ded my head again. I’m a girl of many words.
I con­tin­ued with my strength train­ing. I thanked Candace and moved on to climb­ing. The trainer wasn’t nearly as nice as Candace was. But it didn’t mat­ter since all she had me do was climb a rock wall about fifty times over. I did hor­ri­bly. I kept slip­ping on rocks and I took for­ever to get up once. Strength and climb­ing? Not very good at all.
I moved on to agility. I ran a tread­mill for ten min­utes at a good, steady pace, and then jumped rope for a while. All in all, not bad.
It was time for weaponry.
I had to use each weapon they had and try them out. At the end of the train­ing, I would get to select a weapon for the maze. I had to choose care­fully, because once I chose, I couldn’t change my mind.
“Welcome to weaponry,” The female trainer said in a bored voice. “I’m Teresa and I’ll be you’re trainer. Remember never to use your weapon for any­thing except what you’re told to do, blah, blah, blah. Let’s get started. Choose your weapon.”
There were many dif­fer­ent choices; A bow and arrow, a sword, a spear, a mace, a whip, and a dag­ger.
I chose the bow and arrow.
“Do you know how to use a bow and arrow?” Teresa asked. I nod­ded. I had used one before, but I was rusty.
“Then try to shoot this tar­get.” Teresa walked over to the wall and pointed at the tar­get. I pulled back the arrow and shot, but I shot way off course. Teresa had to duck her head to avoid get­ting hit. It struck the wall and stuck there.
“Guess you’re not going to be using that in the maze,” She said. “Try some­thing else.”
I took the spear. Again, she had me throw it at the tar­get. I threw, but not hard enough. I tried again and again, but it would drop on the ground three feet away from me. Again, I am not very strong at all.
I tried the sword, the mace, and the whip, but every sin­gle one was a fail­ure.
I took the last weapon. A dag­ger com­plete with a small sheath.
“Ah ha ha!” Teresa started laugh­ing. “That is the wimp­i­est weapon I have ever-!”
I threw the dag­ger hard at the tar­get. It flew and hit the bull’s eye.
Teresa’s mouth hung open.
“W-would you like to choose the dag­ger f-for your w-weapon?” She stut­tered.
I turned away from Teresa and walked to the tar­get. I pulled my dag­ger out, and sheathed it around my pants.
I knew every­one was going to hear about my “rage and fury at the weapon trainer”. I knew they would read about me throw­ing the dag­ger. But they wouldn’t know any­thing. They wouldn’t know that I imag­ined President Hunter’s face on that bull’s eye as I threw the dagger.

Procrastination is unac­cept­able. Project must be com­pleted in time. I must be dis­ci­plined. This project must be the begin­ning of my path with a heart.

We put so many demands on our­selves. The hope, the direc­tion, and the des­ti­na­tion are all ideal. We taste vic­tory by pro­jec­tion of mind. We are mov­ing per­fectly and sooner as the prover­bial rab­bit we rest. In the dis­guise of search­ing enrich­ing ideas to aug­ment our project we move into Facebook or Pinterest or the latest.

Our mind has become smarter than us. Mind is ancient. It has seen all this hap­pen before. Mind knows that it is being pulled on an end­less jour­ney of ambi­tion. Mind needs a break to renew and revi­tal­ize. It rests for a while.

Krishna Kumar

Joe, your words are knock­ing at my door! Raised by a mom I could never please, I was always striv­ing for big­ger, bet­ter, per­fect — and yes, I still do. I've been won­der­ing what's stand­ing in my way of get­ting down to busi­ness on my project. I'm going to answer that knock at the door, and I'll just learn to deal with the messi­ness and the mis­takes and the slow­ness. Ah, sigh .… . .

Man … just hav­ing this exact con­ver­sa­tion with my wife.

Fear causes all types of poor/destructive behav­iors for writ­ers. Fear gen­er­ally leads to over­an­a­lyz­ing, which leads to paral­y­sis, and so on.

Time to just move. I say it all the time, even when I'm lousy at apply­ing to my own work.

I think Jeff gets this bet­ter than most Joe … best advice he ever gave me was to stop plan­ning, turn off my brain and just do the work.

I gen­er­ally suck at that, but I'm work­ing on it :)

Joe…yes! I've just fin­ished an eBook project in which I was quite "messed" up deep in the mid­dle. I thought I might go insane because I couldn't get it right. But there in the deep mid­dle, I had this feel­ing that if I just kept com­ing at my sub­ject from a dif­fer­ent angle — ignor­ing how long it took — that this idea of mine would sharpen, sharpen, sharpen. I was vis­ited by this feel­ing that being lost in the mid­dle of my cloud would prove to have a sil­ver lin­ing (messed up metaphor). I'm late at the fin­ish­ing line but happy with the work as it turned out. Good post!