• How many people break their new years resolution, stop going to the gym after two sessions, fail their diet at the sight of a chocolate bar? Sticking something out requires discipline, and if it’s something you feel can be put off until the next day, it’s even harder. It will never be urgent.Sticking to a writing routine is difficult, especially when starting.
• There’s never enough time. We can carve out a little niche here and there for writing, but the truth is things will never get done quickly enough to keep us satisfied, and there are always other commitments gnawing away.
• There is a lot of competition out there. A lot. How many writing blogs are there by people who haven’t made it yet? How many fledgling writers reading them? It’s no wonder your story hasn’t been picked up. It’s going to take a lot of persistence
• First drafts look like crap. It’s easy for us to write and write and look back and think, oh God, I can’t do this, it’s terrible. It’s difficult to write well, and easy to dismiss something as rubbish and forget the whole thing. But almost every writer writes badly in their first draft. Chill.

So next time you feel like you’ve not done enough, remember that this is hard. It takes a lot of work and dedication. You should expect to struggle occasionally. But you’re still here, you’re still doing it. That kind of attitude is half the battle.

Now, the list above is rather short, there are bound to be many more reasons that you can think of. Share them in the comments, please. And remember, these aren’t excuses, but they are reasons to cut ourselves a little slack every now and again. Not too much. Just a little.

There are loads of ways I procrastinate when I sit down to write. And as I write at my computer, they almost always involve the internet or something. In fact, I’ve realised it has developed into something of a routine when I am at home. I boot up, and the first thing I open is not a text editor, but iTunes. I download the single of the week, I update my podcasts. I then open Steam, and check the offer of the week, and see if there are any game updates. I’ll probably then scroll through a few twitter updates to see what’s going on.

All this is obvious time-wasting when I could be writing. Sometimes though, I find myself procrastinating in more subtle ways. I do love to research topics and write notes, for example. This is all well and good, but you can do too much of it.

Recently, I had to admit to myself that I was doing more research than was strictly necessary for a short(ish) story idea I had. This is not so clear-cut. How do you know when you’ve got enough research to make a good start? Well, I guess the only way is to make a start. After all, if you are worried about a particular fact, you can check it, and put it in a later edit.

I’m sure that there is much more procrastination to come. It’s just a matter of self-discipline, backed up by encouragement and goals. I expect to get better over time, even if I never fully overcome it.

Any ways you guys procrastinate?