Sneaking Up on It

"As God is my witness, I will meet my writing goal for the day!"

Do you do this sometimes?

It’s slightly past that hour in the day, the hour you swore a blood oath upon the souls of your ancestors that you were going to get some writing done.

But you KNOW—you just know that it’s going to be hard going. You need to fix that plot hole and then there's that other thing that doesn’t make any sense, but you’re not sure what to do about it. Oh, and don't forget that character who’s acting like an ass, and you kind of hate him right now.

But you can’t face it.

Not yet.

So you think, OK, I’ll push it off. I’ll deal with that later. Today’s kind of busy, and anyway, I need to [insert good excuse here, eg., "need to re-bait those raccoon traps in the back yard with more peanut butter."]

But then you’re walking past your computer and you have this paltry little idea to fix this totally minor thing, and so you figure, OK, I can at least do THAT. So you sit down.

Next thing you know, it’s an hour later, and gosh darn it, you done did your writing for the day, and now you don’t have to sit in the box of shame for being an avoider-procrastinator person.

Sometimes we must use our mental jujitsu to out-maneuver our inner critics.  

And sometimes you’ve got to sneak up on your manuscript, real quiet like, so it doesn’t see you coming. 

Oh, yes, manuscript, I see you. You're not getting away this time.

What trick do you use to get your butt into your chair? Is it a carrot or a stick?