How do you get yourself actually writing?

[littlebutfierce]

OK, folks, help me (& your other comm members!) out here. I'm sure many of us are masters of the art of procrastination.

How do you get yourself to actually sit down & write? Internet blockers (or maybe even -- shudder -- going offline entirely)? Bribing yourself? Getting other people to nag/threaten you? Signing up for challenges?

I write something every day using 750 Words; I've posted before about what a good tool this is for me. Sometimes it works brilliantly, as both a way to get words down on the page & sneak past my internal censor. But often I don't write fic there; I'll just brain-dump. Which is good -- it's still writing -- but I feel like I need to kickstart my word count for fic.

Things I have done today instead of opening up a file to work on fic: updated my reading journal w/what I've read lately; updated another comm; answered DW comments; signed up for Diaspora; took down last year's calendars & put up this year's; put up random things I've had around the house to put on the walls but have been lying around for ages; made tea.

And now, my latest avoidance technique: posting here!

My word count is begging you for help. What are your tips? What have you tried that didn't work for you? (It might work for someone else!)

& just for LOLs, what are your favorite things to do when you're resisting sitting down & actually writing?

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

Oh yeah, I keep my Gmail open all day (in a sea of vaguely work-related tabs). Buuuuut I'm still too paranoid, hahaha! I think I've done, in a draft e-mail, maybe a TITLE or a phrase I wanted to remember. Augh! Chances are nobody's going to look over my shoulder that closely, but... I'm still so paranoid. Especially now that they rearranged our desks so MORE people can see my monitor than before (previously it was only one person, & if he was in a long meeting it was Play on the Internet time).

(& thank you for those spreadsheet links -- they look potentially v. useful!)

[kate]

Oh, I was assuming you had some sort of work email program (Outlook or something like). Because if people see you typing into an email window, most of them don't even thinking about reading it, it's just part of your workload (at least where I am - I do a lot of work by email).

I'm still betting it would work - especially because you're so paranoid. When you hear people coming, just switch to a work related tab. I do this all day at work (the only way I can keep up with my dwircle, which is somehow huge).

[littlebutfierce]

I do have Outlook, but I am so worried about accidentally sending something to someone at work (say, typing my personal e-mail into it & the auto-suggest thing pops up a coworker's e-mail address & I get distracted by the phone or something & accidentally send to them...) that I won't draft e-mails in it that aren't for work!

The trouble is, I don't always hear people coming. My nearest coworker's chair is about 4 feet away from mine -- the other day I turned to my lunch (right behind my elbow on my desk) & realized w/a start that my coworker was peering into my bowl (she's kind of rudely fascinated w/what I eat) & I had no idea she was there. ^^;;;

I am pretty good at rotating between applications if I'm catching up on RSS feeds in Google Reader & I hear someone coming -- I think that's an all right risk for me to be caught reading, but the fic thing just makes me that much more worried...