On Procrastination - guest post by Cecilia Clark (plus a giveaway!) #ChaBooChaLite

I was going to write about procrastination but I put it off until…

Over the years I have worked in a number of different fields. I have worked in hospitality, disability care, foster care, teaching and education support, farming and many volunteer positions.

 In each job, whether it was paid or voluntary, there was always a set starting time and finish time. In some of my jobs there had been clear break times such as lunch and morning tea. The expectation is that I would start a few minutes before the official log on time and be willing to stay late if the job required it. I attended meetings regularly and professional development training on a regular basis to improve and upgrade my skills.

I would have set tasks to complete in set times and have performance reviews.

 As a chef I would start an hour before the opening time to prepare foods before the customers started arriving. Peeling, chopping and storing. Making garnishes, inspecting deliveries, filling out paperwork and a hundred other tasks that would make the evening run smoothly. Every job has its process.

When I decided that my writing was to become my new career I had to shift my thinking from hobby to work. I have always written but I have never looked at it like it was a job. A poem here, a letter there, a story outline or two or forty, I even studied writing and editing part time over six or eight years and always wished I could become a full time writer. It stayed a vague dream with no solid substance behind it.

So early in 2013 I made that solid decision. I looked for opportunities to send my writing into the world but I had a whole tool box of procrastination practices to overcome. The extra cuppa, elevenses, second breakfast, morning tea, afternoon tea, high tea, a phone call, reading that magazine, helping the neighbour, answering the door, going for a coffee at the café with a friend, in fact anything that could distract me did distract me.

 I was still working in a set time job and writing in the evenings but as I drove home one day I realized I was still treating my writing as a hobby and a pie in the sky dream. Something had to change if I had any hope of making my writing a career. I joined writing and art organisations and challenges and began to meet writers and artists but there was another big step I had to take.

Daily practice.

I began to write 500 words a day and then in April I wrote 57000 words in the month which is 1900 words a day and by November of the same year in which I wrote 104000 words, I was writing 3467 words a day.

To beat procrastination I had to learn the following things:

• Writing/Art is the job. Treat it like a job. A fabulous creative wonderful job but a job nonetheless. Set hours, regular work practices, evaluation and training.
• WRITE every day, MAKE ART every day. 
• Say NO – practice this in the mirror and then on family, then friends, then everyone. NO
• WRITE every day, MAKE ART every day. 
• Find a space away from the kitchen and TV and make it a work place. Emphasis on the word WORK. Go there daily and lock the world out.
• Tell people you are a writer NOT I am a babysitter and I write too, NOT I am a chef but I write occasionally. People will respond to how you describe yourself. Practice saying I AM A WRITER or I AM AN ARTIST.(or both)
• WRITE every day, MAKE ART every day. 
• Stop making excuses*
• WRITE every day, MAKE ART every day. On the margin of your school book, on a serviette at work, on the pizza box, JUST do it. Five minutes a day if that is all the time you have.Tell people I AM A WRITER but I have to work in a day job until my first contract. I AM AN ARTIST but I have to pay the rent working in real estate until my exhibition. The day job needs to be your secondary income generator. Your creativity is your first love.
• Stop giving myself a hard time. If I miss a day then I start again the next day.
• CREATE every day.
• Stay focussed on the goal, don’t give up, surround yourself with people who encourage not discourage and create every day.

*I made a LOT of excuses. I had a bad childhood(I sure did and it will make a gruelling read when I write it), I had cancer (four lots of surgery with a flat line and then waking up mid cutting and then BP crash and and I recovered and they got it all and it will make an interesting tale when I write it), I had a car crash (three), I had a dying child (several times) I had no money (I am not yet JKR), no one will really want my stories or art (Yes they do), who do I think I am (I am a writer/artist), I am a single mum (and doing an awesome job of it), I have to rush my sick child to hospital (where I sat for five hours twiddling my thumbs while the professionals did their job so why did I not write about the experience and my feelings?) I am fat (getting fitter), I am ugly (shut up- I am becoming my own best friend), I am stupid (oh no I am not), I am disorganised (get a book on how to change this) I have no time (I quit the day job)… and so many more.

Successful people do not make excuses. Successful people look at the difficulties in their life and they PROBLEM SOLVE.

Since February 2013, I now have stories and art in more than 30 anthologies. I have written two complete novels. I have art work in two other writers’ stories and I am being approached by people who have seen my art.

If you really want it, you will make it happen. When the time is right for you, you will embrace your inner creative and turn it into your career.

I am a writer. I am an artist. I am successful.

*****

Cecilia Clark is an Australian writer. Her short stories and flash fiction feature in a number of anthologies and e-zines. She lives on the south west coast of Victoria in the lovely seaside town of Warrnambool. You can find her on her website at http://ceciliaaclark.blogspot.com.au. She contributed an illustration to this anthology.

*****

Give-away

One person who comments on this post (and is signed up for the challenge) will win a custom fairy creation using their photo (instructions on how to take the photo for my use will be sent to the winner). The fairy photo manipulation can be of you, your child, you and your child or even of more than one child, if they are in the photo together.