Writer's Mind - Writing & the Procrastination Factor

The Procrastination Factor

You've all seen it before. You're halfway through a project, in the process of writing what seemed like a fantastic idea less than one month ago, when WHAM! Along comes an idea that seems even more fantastic, even more exciting and riveting than the first. You decide you can't possibly let this opportunity pass you by and immediately drop Project A because Project B is an idea that just can't wait.

You work diligently on Project B. Some time passes. You're halfway through the first draft, when WHAM! Along comes an idea that seems even more fantastic, even more exciting and riveting than the last and....we all know where this is leading because we've all been there.

It's what I like to call the Procrastination Factor.

It's an unusual psychological dilemma every writer faces at one time or another. I certainly haven't been able to avoid it myself. If you're one of the lucky few who have escaped its clutches so far, chances are you'll fall victim to it at some point in your writing career.

Part of it draws from the innate fear of failure. If a writer is constantly beginning new projects, he or she may never finish a script and therefore may never have to send it out into the industry and encounter rejection from potential agents and producers. Eventually, most writers overcome this fear and realize rejection is part of the territory.

Part of it stems from that wonderful high all writers get when a new idea pops into their head — the incredible rush that comes from the notion that you, yourself, have just thought up a storyline with the potential to become a fantastic film. Frequently moving from one project to the next allows a writer to maintain that high for as long as possible.

Contrary to popular belief, the drug of choice in Hollywood is not cocaine but concept.

The temptation to succumb to the thrill of a new idea is hard to resist. It helps to focus on the fact that an even bigger high is waiting for you when you can hold your completed script in your hands and think, "I wrote this." This can eventually lead to the vastly more incredible high of selling your script, holding a relatively large check in your hands, staring at your story unfolding on the big screen, and thinking, well… "WOW!" (What else would you be thinking?!)

Being overwhelmed with a flood of new ideas is not necessarily a bad thing and can, in fact, be extremely beneficial. What a writer does when struck by those ideas is what determines whether the ideas are a blessing or a curse. Most writers have found the best way to handle the incoming tide is to keep a notebook handy to write down ideas as they come. Make a few brief notes, enough to insure you'll remember what they mean when you refer to them later. Scribble out a quick outline. Jot down key phrases, scene locations, character traits, bits and pieces of dialogue, anything that comes to you at that moment.

Then put down the notebook and go back to your current project.

That is not to say you can't have several writing projects in the works at the same time. Simultaneously working on multiple projects allows you to move from one project to another whenever you encounter writer's block and don't know where to take a particular storyline next. Sometimes taking your focus off one project and concentrating on another will bring the right solution to the fore of your mind.

The key is maintaining the discipline to revisit those projects until they are completed. As long as you are always returning to those projects, always doing everything you can to finish them and to be productive, it can be a healthy habit. The true problem arises when you're not going back to those projects, when they become part of an ever-growing stack of half-finished scripts resting undisturbed on a closet shelf.

Stop right now and count on your fingers how many stories you are currently in the process of writing.

If you've used up all the fingers on one hand and moved on to the second (or worse, if you're counting toes because you've run out of fingers) you're a victim of the Procrastination Factor.

The cure: Take your stack of half-finished manuscripts or screenplays out of the closet, dust them off and bring them back to life.

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