The Art of Procrastination

Here we are at the second to last day of the month and I'm starting a "to do" item from the first week of this same month.  Doesn't that sound a little like procrastination or is it really zen and letting things happen in their own time?  No, it's putting it off and putting it off and putting it off - you get the idea. 

It's not that I dislike writing (some writers actually do - finding it quite painful in fact).  It's just that getting started.  It's that first line.  Once upon a time in the old west a man lost his horse or a horse lost his man?  After the first line it starts to flow and I quite enjoy the process of writing. But then I stop.  It might be for food or for sleep or simply because it's been a long enough session. Then, there I am again looking for the starting line.  Sometimes as a kick start, I'll begin in the middle of the piece. And that is what I need to do today.

I'm working on my second novel, Memory of Murder, and have gotten into a bit of a procrastination rut looking for the first line of the next chapter.   There's been one death so far so maybe I'll skip ahead to the second one - you know there's going to be a second one.

There is an art to being a truly great procrastinator.   It doesn't go real well with the art of writing.  After all, as I remember reading years ago: a writer is only a writer when he writes.