Your Archenemies

They lurk in the crevices of your mind watching for an opportunity to take you down and take you out. Left unchecked, they will stop you in your tracks. Their mission: Destroy your writing productivity.
Who are these wicked villians?

    Procrastination                               and                            Perfectionism

These sinister twins work as a tag team. When you get the handle on one, the other steps in to take its place. If you aren’t careful you’ll find yourself volleying between the two and never accomplishing anything.

Procrastination boasts in his ability to make you put off writing “till later.” He flexes his muscles saying,

“You don’t have time right now.”
”Wait until things slow down and you can think.”
”One day you’ll ample time to do nothing but write.”
”All those other writers aren’t as busy as you. They have more time to write.”
”Do it later.”

When later finally comes you won’t have the same flow of inspiration. Thus, his mission is accomplished. Destruction complete.

If you happen to overcome the strength of procrastination, perfectionism is waiting for his round in the ring with you. Perfectionism is your inner English teacher, questioning your spelling, pointing out punctuation errors, holding you accountable to rigid rules that strangle your writing efforts. His job is to convince you that you must do it perfectly or it isn’t worth doing.

He’s a relentless nagger, a heartless killer of creativity, demanding perfection at every turn. If you lean your ear his way, he’ll strip you of your confidence and make you believe you can’t write at all.

The first step to winning the battle is recognizing the enemy.

Now it’s time to slay those evil villains that aim to forever label you a potentially great writer. Destroy their power and develop that potential into actual, tangible writing progress.

Win over procrastination and perfectionism!


Images by lawndart on Flickr