When Doody Calls (AKA A Telltale Sign of Writerly Procrastination, and What It May Reveal)
By Mary McDonough | January 23, 2023 |
Please welcome author and book coach Mary McDonough to Writer Unboxed today!
If the name Mary McDonough sounds familiar, it may be because she portrayed Erin on The Waltons for a decade. Mary chronicles her Walton family and life beyond the mountain in Lessons from the Mountain, What I Learned from Erin Walton. Her debut novel, One Year, was published in 2014, followed by a second novel, Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane, which was made into a Hallmark movie.
“A warm, heartfelt novel about what it means to belong to a family. You won’t want to put it down.” –Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times bestselling author of A Lowcountry Wedding
Perhaps the result of the many years she spent working in and successfully navigating her place in a difficult and highly visible industry, it seemed only natural for Mary to connect and guide others. Thus, her work as a Life Coach began. We’re thrilled to have her with us today wearing that Life Coach hat, ready to advise and guide and do that thing she does so well.
You can learn more about Mary on her website, and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.
Ever have those days where ANYTHING sounds better that writing? I’ve had many. Sometimes the days stretch out to weeks. One day, as I was avoiding life in general and my novel in particular, I found myself gazing out into the backyard. My dog was lying in a sunny spot, enjoying himself. For a second, I wished I had a dog’s life, but then I remembered, I have to finish my book. I should be writing. Then a thought wafted into my head.
Mary, you need to poop-scoop the back yard. You haven’t done it since yesterday.
And off I went. Dutifully picking up doody. I went into the garage to toss my prize and saw the trash had piled up. What better time to take out the rubbish and organize it for trash day, which was only five days away? Of course, after that task, I had to wash my hands. As the warm water slid over my palms and the scent of soap filled my nose, I realized it was late—too late to get motivated or in the mood to write. That would take forever, I told myself. So I started making dinner instead.
Just like that, another day had passed, and I had not written a single word.
As a writing coach, I’ve seen procrastination with clients as well. I had to be accountable to myself, and take a coach-approach to my own writing. When I realized I’d rather clean my garage, scrape the BBQ, exercise, or even scoop poop than sit my butt in the chair and write, I had to ask myself why.
Did I really not want to finish my novel?
I knew that wasn’t true. My desire to share my story was all-consuming.
So, why do we do it? Avoid the page, the computer, and sometimes stay away from our designated writing nooks. Why do we avoid writing at all costs when we know it is our passion? We crave adding the words “The End” to anything. We love being a creative (most of the time). We enjoy spawning plots, adding character traits, and dishing out drama. We adore typing up witty dialogue. Finding the perfect metaphor sends us to heights of joy. Writing is who we are. Right? It’s something we must do, something we should want to do, something we have to do.
And then it hit me. Those words are red flags in my coaching: have to, should, and must. The minute those words enter the psyche, we are removed from our passionate and creative selves. Because these words aren’t creative. They’re scolding. And we listen to punishing words, they diminish productivity and damage our self-esteem. When have to, must, and should are in play, we have opened the door and invited in our inner critic. We have created a space for that negative voice to sit down and tell us what a piece of crap we are.
Try it for a second. Listen to the critical voice that tells you how lame you are for poop-scooping instead of getting your work done. Maybe it says things like: You can’t do this, what are you thinking? How are you ever going to finish a novel? You have to finish. You’re a perfectionist-you’ll never get it right and you’ll never stop being a perfectionist. It not a good idea anyway. You should be further along by now. It’s going to take you forever! You don’t have time. You’re out of ideas. You don’t really know how to do this. You’re not motivated enough. You’re too old. You’re too young. You must have an agent. You’ll never get it published. You’re lazy. You’re not that good.
Now, while your version of that critic is having a field day, try something positive and creative instead. For example, visualize flowers in your mind’s eye or start dancing.
Did the voice go away, or did you blow it away with your awesome dance?
When the critic hammers away at us, it’s almost impossible to create anything. If you can, then great. You have a tool to use. If not, you may need other tools. So how else can we calm the inner demons that take us off our path?
Here are a few coaching ideas for you to play with. Each person is unique and when I coach one-on-one, I work with the person’s specific issues, but I’ll throw a few out for you to try.
- First, take should, must and have to out of your vocabulary. Begin to notice how often you use those words, especially when talking to yourself. One of my ground rules for coaching is “nobody gets to be wrong.” Imagine a world in which you are not wrong. Your writing style, creative habits, characters, instincts, and writing aren’t wrong. Nothing is wrong. It’s your story.
- Second, interrupt the negative flow of the critical voice. Sometimes I’ll advise a client to actually put their hand out, like a traffic cop, and say out loud: “STOP.” Then cut yourself some slack. Take yourself off the meat hook for not writing.
- Get quiet and ask yourself the question, “Why would I rather _______ (poop scoop, you fill in the blank) than write?” Then listen for the answer from the other inner voice that lives in your highest awareness. You know, THAT voice. What does it have to say? How different is this voice from the critic? Notice if there’s resistance to listening to this kinder voice. Maybe write down what comes into your head. And I don’t mean sit at your computer and open a Word document. Write it on a scrap of paper, a supermarket list, or a notepad. You could even dictate it into your smartphone. Remember to record the first answer you hear, not the critic. You can always come back around to it later.
- Give yourself permission NOT to write. What would that be like for you? Less pressure, less expectation, less beating yourself up? Because we all know what happens when we force ourselves to do something we don’t want to do. Trust that there must be a good reason or at least a reason why you’re in avoidance. Let that awareness sink in. Honor the reason instead of beating yourself up with it is a place to start.
- Realign to your purpose. Why are you writing this particular story, essay, or book? Why did it bubble up into your creative self in the first place? Why was it important? Is it still as important, or have you outgrown the premise? Does it resonate with you?
- Notice the amount of energy you still have for your project. Reconnect to your creative desire around your writing if you can.
The next time your inner critic pops in with their ideas, I challenge you to try and shift your perspective. Using these tools may create a space for you to return to your creative desires. Use them in order, or pick one that resonates with you, or not at all. Remember, nobody gets to be wrong. Most especially, YOU!
How do you motivate yourself back to the keyboard when everything — anything! — seems easier than writing? How do you combat the negative voice in your head?
If the name Mary McDonough sounds familiar, it may be because she portrayed Erin on The Waltons for a decade. Mary chronicles her Walton family and life beyond the mountain in Lessons from the Mountain, What I Learned from Erin Walton. Her debut novel, One Year, was published in 2014, followed by a second novel, Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane, which was made into a Hallmark movie. Perhaps the result of the many years she spent working in and successfully navigating her place in a difficult and highly visible industry, it seemed only natural for Mary to connect and guide others. Thus, her work as a Life Coach for writers began. You can learn more about Mary on her website.
Hi Mary, great to see you here! I love the title of your post, ha! You made some great points here. “Should” is such a shaming word from my youth—if I could, I’d cast it from the dictionary. It works on a level so deep I don’t consciously recognize it! Today I’ll adopt this: “Yay, I get to write today!” I’m sure it will be way more motivating.
Thanks Kathryn. I completely agree about the “should.” Let’s replace it with a positive. I love your positive mantra. YAY!!!
Hi Mary! Not to be dramatic, but you may have saved my writing career. LOL. Boy, did I feel the gut punch. Thank you so much for your insightful words.
WOW! Thank you Lynn. So glad it resonated with you. Hopefully you can now take a breath after that gut punch and allow a space for something new. Be kind to yourself.
Mary,
Thank you for your delightful and thoughtful piece about thwarting procrastination. I particularly liked the point about asking why you would rather do almost anything else than write and then listening for the answer “from the other inner voice that lives in your highest awareness. You know, THAT voice.”
I find myself fending off the critical voice so much, I forget there is THAT voice inside of me, waiting for me to sit down with it and listen to its crazy ideas about my worthiness. Even if it fails to get me writing for the day, it may just get me to dance, instead.
Lots of good stuff to ponder. Thanks again!
Thanks for your thoughtful answer, Sheree. Such a visual of “fending off” the critical. It’s often such a fight. What if you/we put the sword down? Or, took off the gloves? Just stopped the fight? We do forget about the other voice. I find it takes some effort to get quiet, and listen to the bigger/sage/ higher voice, but it is always worth it. Take care.
Hi Mary. Thanks for your post. It’s true: “should,” “must” and “have to” are finger-wagging nannies that do many writers more harm than good. In their defense, though, I guess you could say the nannies are responsible for people not getting crap on their shoes, or the basement turning into a landfill. But hindering writing is often not the problem. At least for those of us who write rough drafts with relative ease. Being hindered when re-writing is the problem. Here’s where the real choices are made, and choosing is what’s so hard. At least for me. Here’s where one decision after another is subject to doubt. But choose we must, and it can be hard, hard, hard. Thanks again.
Hi Barry. I love the scolding fingers visual! Mine are usually ugly crones. LOL It can he HARD! Yes, such a good point. If we allowed ourselves to make the choices from the wisdom places, instead of the doubt, it would lighten the load, I think. Thanks for your post.
Mary, what a storied life! Thank you for sharing your tips on beating procrastination. I find getting started most difficult, but once I get started, it’s so much easier to stay engaged in the story. I’m returning home after several weeks away (family troubles) and your post was exactly what I needed to silence the inner critic. Thank you. Today I choose joy becauseI have the *freedom* to write. I have new ideas humming and after my morning chores are done will have the time to explore them. Doody calls :)
I really like your exercise to ask why I would rather. My tip. Begin. Whatever it takes. For me, that’s observation.
Vijaya, thanks for your kind words. I wish you the best in resolving the family troubles. Life is also part of our art and writing for sure. Sometimes it needs to be addressed before be can get back to our writing. “Freedom” is a great place to write from. So glad you are back to beginning. Enjoy every moment.
This is solid advice, Mary. Once one has simmered down and stopped beating oneself up, the resistance, for me, usually boils down to a difficulty not in me but in the project. There is something about the story that I don’t yet know how to do.
One remedy is to read the work of others to identify an approach that might work. Another is to ask whether the story could shift, like a train shunting to a different track. Still another is to write ahead anyway because Thomas Edison tried a bunch of different metals for filament before he found tungsten and the light bulb worked.
What you’re suggesting today, I think, is to shift the focus off yourself, to shut off the fear brain and engage the thinking brain, and take a calm look at the factors making it hard to write. There is always a solution but not if one is placing blame on an enemy who will always win: our poor opinion of ourselves.
Anyway, helpful post. I admire the shifts and redirections you’ve made happen in your own career. That’s impressive.
Thank you Benjamin. much a great point about identifying the WHAT that is taking us off track. Sometimes it isn’t us at all, but a plot point, wording, or character element. Simply trusting ourselves can change everything. I love the “fear brain.” Thanks for sharing that perspective. I listen to fear brain often. So glad you named it.
Great post today, Mary, and so much fun to read! I struggle mightily with first drafts but find revision to be (somewhat) smoother sailing. I agree with Benjamin–for me, procrastination often has to do with a wrong turn in the manuscript or a plot problem I can’t figure out. Thanks for the helpful strategies to silence that ugly critical voice.
Thanks Suzanne. Such an important point about a wrong turn in the manuscript. Hopefully we can recognize those turns, and not beat ourselves up too much. I hope we can all send that ugly, critical voice off to a distant land.
I would guess you’re very good at life-coaching, Mary. Somehow you reproduced everything in my head.
I suspect that I’m just bone lazy, and I’ve been getting away with it. I realized a while back that my entire career in writing and editing was driven by deadlines. Fear: That’s the stuff. Now that I no longer need to submit work in order to buy groceries, I have a tendency to overdo the relaxation.
I do enjoy coaching, Michael. Helping people is a bonus for sure. Especially with issues I’ve dealt with myself. So interesting you have found the relaxation now. Maybe lean into that a bit to write? So great you are away from the dreaded pressure of deadlines. Maybe add a few back in and see if that lights a fire? Just a thought. Maybe you are not “bone lazy,” but matured and safer now.
Brian- “the fear brain” – excellent phrase, and identifying it takes away some of the fear’s power. Thanks!
Right, Cris? So powerful.
Great Mary. I have a friend who devoted her life to becoming a successful painter whose work is now shown in galleries and collected throughout the U.S. She was raised in a tiny ranch town in Hermiston Oregon where artists were people who went mad, starved and cut off their ears. Creativity was cute at best. I met her as a reporter when was sent to the loft in the barn of a men’s western ware store to write a new business story about an artist who had set up a studio there. I knew she was special (like a candle in the wind?) and what kept her going. She sat me down and sketched my portrait and I asked her exactly that question. First, she said, renting the space and putting up her chair and easel was a promise to herself. Two, she told everyone she was an artist and showed her work to people and gave art classes. . Pressure yes. But also saying she was an artist helped her believe she was an artist even when she was giving her paintings away. Three, I noticed a copper bracelet on her brush arm engraved simply, “Damn I’m good.” She said every time she had a doubt or even just looked toward her brush she would see it and tell herself it was true. A decade later she way and much devotion to mastering craft and exploring her own style she was on her way in her first to galleries. I’m now putting in my decade transitioning from reporting and PR to speculative fiction. Her “messages to self” still serve me well. I have my home office even when I travel and it is only a chair that is dedicated writing space, everyone I know or meet knows I am writing a novel and writing fiction can take years. I don’t have a copper bracelet (would love to) but every time I open Scrivener I choose the folder that says “Damn I’m good.”
Hi Torrie. What a great story an inspiration. We all could use a “Damn I’m Good” bracelet. It reminds me of the company (MyIntent) make one word intention bracelets. They are a round disc imprinted with your “word” with leather straps. I got them for each of my family members for Christmas. But I like yours better. What a great way to set an intention for your writing. Seeing it every time you open Scrivener! Thanks for posting.
Mary:
Thanks for the thought-provoking post. I’ve often (too often) wondered why, on certain days, I don’t “feel like” writing, why I would rather scrub the bathroom or pick the last of the pine needles from the Christmas tree out of the carpet. Today, I seriously asked myself, and realized it was the frustration of working in a field where the fruit of my labor is consistently judged by others, by Forces That Be who may have vastly different opinions. A bathroom’s cleanliness can be defined by a generally-agreed-upon set of standards. With writing, “cleanliness” can mean so many different things, depending of which Forces wield the red pen — it makes me wonder why I bother.
I’m still trying to figure it out. But at least now I know what I’m trying to figure out. Meanwhile, that shower curtain is looking a little mildewy . . .
Hey Christine, I GET IT about that shower curtain! Such a great awareness about aligning our writing to what we think are other people’s rules or red lines are. When I get that way, I remind myself that almost anything goes these days. My writing group and I often talk about how the rules change and comment on NYT best-selling authors who have broken all the rules we try so hard to follow. And…people still love their books. So I always say, write for yourself. Get the judges out of your head and write what YOU want.
I am going to use this helpful insight with more than my writing. I think it applies even more to my practicing my guitar. I am taking ‘should’ and self-criticism out of my internal vocabulary. I can’t change how much ‘negative motivation’ I heard from others in my formative years, but I don’t need to do it to myself. Thank you, Mary.
Absolutely, Julia. We learned these criticisms from some of the best people around us. They may have even been thinking they were motivating us. Or just truly mean people. Either way, best to let their judgements go and play your heart out! Thanks for your note.