“Do whatever it takes.” Unknown

I skimmed an article today about strange writer habits and how Victor Hugo coaxed himself into writing. He locked up his formal outfits and wrapped up in a shawl or he turned over his clothes to his servants and ordered them not to return them until he wrote a chapter. That’s something to consider when the weather warms up. 

I’m joking, I think, but have you ever felt desperate enough to do something drastic?

A famous French writer of the Claudine novels, Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, said her husband locked her in a room until she produced something because she never liked writing. My family’s probably been tempted.

Do whatever it takes.  

Any goal will do for putting it off. My daughter’s brown bathroom needed painting for six months. At least once weekly she said, “I need to get off the phone and start painting that bathroom.” 

Finally one afternoon I said, “If you’ll stop talking about the bathroom, I’ll drive two hours and paint it myself.” 

The least she could have done was offered the same courtesy when it came to my book, the one I talked about for six years, “I need to get off the phone and go write something.” 

A friend commented on “Day 14: Do The Hard Thing.” She taught at a university and dreaded assignment due dates. It meant dealing with 100 papers. She said, “If I have a task (particularly one very daunting) I will put myself in leg chains and chain my entire body to the spot where I must complete the task.”

Before I read, “Metaphorically, of course,” I typed “Chains from Amazon?”

Not really, but, y’all, wrangling with ourselves to complete our projects is a project within itself.  

Do whatever it takes.

My friend’s solution – she set a timer for one hour and she worked. She said, “Two out of three times I would be so involved and on target I would continue another hour or so before I would get up.”

Same here with my writing, so if you only take away two or three tips from today’s blog post, these are good ones: do whatever it takes; you’re well on your way when you get started; and avoid Hugo’s example if your project is outdoors. 

Any more tips for your procrastinating friends? We’d love to hear from you. 

In This Together, 
Kim