How to quit the procrastinating and get writing

Hey. I want to write an intro, but whatever I write, I know that it will be crap. Like that. That last sentence. Now I have to go back and delete it and think of something else. But whatever I replace it with will be worse. Know why? Because I suck. I can’t write, and if anyone expects me to, they will be sorely disappointed.

I am a fraud, you see. Perhaps you can relate: you may have come across something you wrote long ago and thought, “How did I ever write so well; so effortlessly? I would never be able to write like that now”. Or maybe you’ve sat in despair in front of the agonising white expanse of an empty Word document and wondered where it all went wrong.

I’ve always only been as good as the last thing I wrote. After it’s handed in or published, all reverts to zero and I must prove myself once more with the next thing. Because, quite clearly, it could have been a fluke.

Imposter Syndrome is rife in the writer’s realm. Plagued by critical voices, self-doubt and rejection, we curl ourselves into self-protective spirals of angst and procrastinate until the last possible moment. Wasting time and energy, and annoying the crap out of all who can bear to listen, we wonder aloud how we ever got into this mess. The pressure, the pressure!

The annoying thing, of course, is that all of this is self-imposed. It’s that old you-are-your-own-worst-enemy schtick. And while it may feel like your apparent incompetence will be exposed and lead to public ritual humiliation in the town square, the consequences of writing something that isn’t perfect are never that dramatic.

Stupid Imposter Complex. Want to smash it in the kneecaps? Here are a few ideas to kick the pre-emptive self-criticism and get writing.

• Write to a particular person. I used to have a puzzling problem: I could easily write sparkling, witty anecdotes when they were in emails to friends, but if I had to write the same story for publication, I’d freeze up. I’d start questioning every sentence and trying to make it sound better. I’d cram in obscure words to make myself appear learned, then wonder why my prose was so forced and lifeless.
  
  Why did this happen? Because when I was writing to a friend, I was writing to someone I felt comfortable with. I was relaxed, I was chatty, and while I wanted to entertain, I wasn’t bothered if I made a mistake or sounded a bit goofy. When I was writing for publication, however, I’d picture a crowd of unimpressed people, each looking at their watch and giving me ten seconds to impress. In this crowd were a few notable people: a uni professor whose class I failed through non-attendance, the anonymous commenter who responded to one of my tech opinion articles with “Fire this chick and kill the person who hired her”, and a bunch of others standing there in military formation, just waiting for me to make an embarrassing mistake.
  
  Here’s a suggestion if you’ve had similar experiences: when you write, write to a particular person. Choose someone you trust. Choose someone who supports you and encourages you and makes you feel like a million bucks, even in this recession-ruined world. I guarantee the words will come easier, and the final product will be much more interesting to read.
• Accept that first drafts suck. Everyone’s do. That’s why they’re first drafts. But the sweet thing is, no-one needs to see them except you. So get your garbled, unstructured, messy words onto the page quicksmart. Then step away for a while, pour yourself a beer/Milo/margarita, and come back to edit and refine.
  

• Don’t be afraid to meander. Michael Ondaatje’s wonderful book In The Skin Of A Lion has this great passage about the journeys in people’s lives. One of the phrases in it is “meander if you want to get to town”. When you’re trying to make a point, sometimes it helps to meander your way there. You might get sidetracked, but that peripheral issue could become the main one — or it could spark an idea for another piece of writing. Either way, you’ll find out by writing your way there.
  

• Write daily. The more you write, the less of a big deal it will seem. Write in the morning. Make it the first thing you do. Julia Cameron calls it “morning pages” in her book on creativity, The Artist’s Way. And it totally works. If you wake up, grab a pen, and pour all the headnoise onto two or three pages of foolscap, you are then ready to start your day unencumbered by the mental dregs of yesterday. You have to write quickly, though, and without worrying about content. As with first drafts, no-one else has to see it. This is for you.
• Know when to let go. Sometimes you’ll write something you’re not happy with. You may even be embarrassed by it. But unless it involved grievous factual errors and a subsequent lawsuit for defamation, you just have to let that stuff go. Move on the the next thing. You can’t be smokin’ hot all the time, but if you write a lot, you’ll have a decent stellar-to-rubbish ratio. Many published authors operate on this principle.