The unbearable inevitability of repetition: N M Browne

I've been writing for a while. Long enough to recognise its patterns. I blogged about them on my

own blog 
http://bookdoctornicky.blogspot.co.uk/

One of the patterns is to forget about the patterns.
I started a new blog and a new business as a 'book doctor' and writing tutor as yet another form of procrastination and I was going to write about procrastination. To procrastinate I checked if I'd ever written about it before.

Yep - another pattern I'd forgotten- at some point in the blogging year I write about procrastination Here is one from http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.co.uk/
way back in 2008:

'I have a confession to make: I am a procrastinator and a time waster and there is no twelve step programme to help me.

I waste a lot of time reading blogs and I mean a lot of time. I love the clever ones with multiple links, the erudite ones and the guilt-inducing ones that demand I lend support to obscure causes. I adore the witty ones and the bitchy ones, but most of all I like the ones that read like a private diary, that let you into a secret life.'


Even my own secret life which I seem to have forgotten. There is another one posted here almost a year ago:


Every serious writer is a master of procrastination. I am sure that, if you are reading this, you are already on track. However, if you are running out of ideas, I would like to share with you my top procrastination tips. I can guarantee that if you follow these, you will never finish a novel again.
1.     Make a ‘to do’ list.
If you think list-making helps avoid procrastination, you are doing it wrong.
    
2.     Research.
Before writing a book you must research broadly, particularly if you don’t know what the book is going to be about. Under no circumstances have a plan.
         In order find the best agent/publisher and sell your book in shedloads read all the posts on internet chat rooms that deal with writing and the publishing industry. Sign up for mailing lists and join online writing communities. Blog and read other bloggers. Post compulsively about your ideas and worries. Ask for advice and dispense it. Get into arguments. 
         Change your mind about the marketability of the book you might like to write. Think about writing another one. Repeat as necessary.
   
So the only conclusion I can draw is that we writers live on a hamster wheel of repeated cycles, like a goldfish in a bowl we conveniently forget that we have been here before. Either that or it's just me and I am once more quietly losing the plot. I've blogged about that before too.


Comments

Bill Kirton said…
As you know full well, N.M., it's not just you. Thanks to you, however, I can add to my list the fact that, when I make my lists (handwritten in a special notebook, typed into dedicated files on the PC, transferred at later stages to the laptop and iPad, rediscovered and deleted several weeks later) I must also set aside time to make sure I'm not 'doing it wrong'.
Enid Richemont said…
Ouch! Spot-on! That's me, although I do find having lists gives me a conscience if I don't fulfil them, which is why when I'm really in my finest procrastination form, I don't make them.

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