Patricia Harrelson

Last December, I launched a book project with great enthusiasm as you can tell by this post: Starting a Big Writing Project.

I completed my first interview and worked on a filing system and then the holidays intervened. And then I got sick. And then I got terribly busy in my freelance business and with family. Though the project continued with additional interviews and transcription and occasional research forays, it was only limping along. Psychologically, I felt stalled. I was whining and fretting and procrastinating but could not gather any momentum. That’s when I took the issue to my writing group. Rather than bring a piece of writing when it was my turn, I asked for time to process the wall I was facing and hear what they did to light the fire and keep it blazing.

Oh my! These women are smart! They set me on the path and gave me a firm shove to get going.

First, they helped me figure out what was stopping me, which was basically three things that were leading to severe procrastination:

• overbooking myself with freelance work and family;
• Internet addiction–the siren call of email, Facebook, list- servs, and following links hither and yon.
• FEAR: who was I to write about this man’s life? What did I know?

Antidotes were embedded in the conversation we had that night and the reading I did over the next few days.  In my next post, I will described the action and attitude adjustment they inspired.