Procrastination and writer’s block can be big challenges for writers of many experience levels. Strategies for dealing with either are topics for whole books!

The reasons we conflict with procrastination and writer’s block are also complex, and, likely, those complexities could be subjects of entire psychology books, if they are not already.

One suggestion that comes out in many workshops to help deal with either is to engage in a complete commitment to writing. Stop referring to yourself as a “sometimes writer.” Use language that commits. You _are_ a writer. You make time for your writing. Sometime, commitment is not enough to abolish these blocks.

PROMPT

I recently came across a promising prompt from William Kenower that he has used at times when he has experienced procrastination about his writing practice. I’ve wholesale stolen it for this week’s workshop meeting. You can follow all of his steps for a complete visualization or follow along below for simplified version.

I really appreciate Mr. Kenower’s approach in his article and for the prompt. Taking your anxieties, reshaping them, changing the narrative reflected in those anxieties to a narrative that supports and nurtures you, and transforming that narrative through the power of writing.

Here are the steps:

1. Envision a character. He or she is a writer having trouble approaching the practice that give them joy. They procrastinate when they should be writing. Write a description of what they fear will happen, a description of what it is keeping that character from writing, an activity that brings them joy.
2. Envision the same character having a great day of writing and write a description of that day.
3. Turn that same first experience so the writer has the same difficulty with another task they engage in and write the description of that difficulty.

Good luck and keep writing!