Okay, suffered the “what does anyone want to hear me think about” newbie bloggers syndrome that kept me away for a week. Pondered over a whole bunch of mini essay ideas. They all sounded too serious-minded for this early in the game. Some I like and will revisit some other time, but not just yet. And this isn’t going to be a blog about not knowing what to write about. No, I know what is first and foremost on my mind right now about writing.

Procrastination. Putting it off. Avoiding writing. Finding all those wonderful little things that need doing day in and day out. Sure I have lots of time to write — but I fill it with doing the dishes, cooking, practicing the piano, reading — and those are the things I dare to mention. I looked around my apartment as I wrote that last line and realized that “Cleaning the apartment” is not in there. It’s a mess with stuff tossed everywhere.

And it isn’t that I’ve been putting off writing this blog entry. No, I’ve been putting off finishing the third Finding Fairyland book. But I figured out why and have made some notes to fix what was bothering me. If you’re wondering, all I have left is chapter 9 and And Then Some. Then the revisions — where I’ll fix the stuff bothering me. If you’ve checked out my Appearances page, you’ll see we plan to launch this book June 13. Less than 2 months from now. I have a lot to do between now and then.  But I’m good at procrastinating and I’ll delay and dawdle and all of that for too long. I know it. But I’ll get it done so we can meet that deadline and have it all ready for — did I mention? June 13.

Have you checked out the Flushing Observer article that came out before the March 21 booksigning? Here’s the link:
http://www.mlive.com/flushing/index.ssf/2009/03/author.html Take a look. It explains what I/we are doing with the books and the web sites and all of that.

About procrastination (You thought I was trying to put that off, avoid it weren’t you?) (And you were wondering where the parenthetical statements were, too, eh?) So how to beat procrastination? If I knew a surefire method, I’d be using it. I don’t. Right now I try to set little goals: one page here, another there. That’s what worked for me in the past: break it down into smaller parts and do one at a time. Simple but effective. I wish I could spare the time to just sit down and make a run for the whole chapter, get it done in one mad dash. I would, but I have dishes to do and some shirts that need ironing.

Take care. Enjoy the weather — whatever it is.

Barry