Procrastinizing

 I love writing.

Revising? Not so much. 

Submitting? 

Hey, does that smelly trash need to be emptied? Does that mountain of laundry need attending to? Anyone need anything from the grocery store an hour away? 

Submissions are the writing version of a beauty pageant. There are numerous categories in which it's necessary to excel -- query letter, synopsis, appropriately targeted editor or agent -- not the least of which is the manuscript into which the author has poured her blood, sweat and tears. The competition is fierce, and most of the categories are for the benefit of the judges (editors and agents), not the writer. And, what's worse, if don't win a beauty pageant, you know. If an agent or editor doesn't like your work, they're very likely to mentally pass on your submission, then just move on to the next contestant without an actual acknowledgment. Silence is perhaps worse than the dreaded rejection letter.

Gee, I can't imagine why I avoid this process. 

Yesterday, I promised myself I'd once again dig into this onerous process, something I've been putting off for a couple of months for many reasons, some of which are good and others of which are pathetic. Determined to skirt the excuses, I even wrote the task in my planner on today's page in order to hold myself accountable. 

Have I done it yet? 

I have not.

I've done a bunch of other things, though -- things that were also on my list, but not necessarily assigned to today's to-do list. Mostly, I worked on clearing the post-vacation detritus from the dining room table (another biggie because the piles are getting on my nerves), a task of the one-thing-leads-to-another variety. As morning turned to afternoon, I chided myself for procrastinating.

But was I procrastinating? Or was I prioritizing? 

The truth is that it's probably a little bit of both. The payoff of a cleared-off surface is more visible and obvious than the payoff of working on a query letter or synopsis, or reviewing the feedback from my critique group on my existing query letter. In addition, circling the dining room table and putting things where they belong allows me to add steps to my FitBit tally, which is another goal that's easy to miss in the summer when sedentary tasks like reading and writing yield plenty of entertainment but zero movement.

So, I am prioritizing. The question is whether or not I'm prioritizing the "right" things. And, truth be told, I'm also procrastinating. I know this because I'm choosing to do the faster and easier items on my list (unloading the dishwasher, writing this blog post) rather than digging into that query letter which, in addition to being a more difficult task, stirs up a witch's brew of uncertainty and insecurity. 

Ah. There it is. The telltale symptoms of procrastination: avoidance.

Busted.

When I signed up for this beauty pageant, I was prepared to manage the talent portion and even the interview. Now I have to tackle the swimsuit competition: dressing myself and my manuscript in metaphorical Lycra, at least on the page, to earn the judges' approval so I can move on to the next tier of the competition.

There's still time. I just have to stop procrastinizing.

Wish me luck.