Know thy enemy. Know thyself.

Today I received a copy of the Romance Writers Report from the nice people at Romance Writers of America. The cover was lovely. A woman (in much better shape than I am) sat resting peacefully on a rock, water behind her, and a laptop perched on her... well, lap, of course. And there it was. The headline. "Defeating your own worst enemy-yourself."

Did everything Shirley Jump, the article's author, say apply to me? Of course not. We all have different issues. And her point-of-view was from that which I wish I was, an author able to stay home all day and procrastinate. I, on the other hand, need to fit my procrastination in to my weekends and evenings. Still, it was timely. And some of her advice seemed written just for me. Here are my favourite take-aways from her article:

• Bribe yourself: She uses candy, or a lunch with friends. I think I'll use wine. Or that lovely 12-year-old Macallan Reg gave me for Christmas.

• Find extra time: Ok. The person who can get up at 4 am to write, wow. Good for her. I don't think I can do that. But maybe I can get up by 5:30. I can try that. Or commit to two nights a week. I'm going to give it a go.

• Make a list: Oh boy. I'm the queen of making lists. You should see my desk. And my notebook. And even the Things app on my iPad. I make great lists. But I don't follow them that well. But... if I combine making the list, with the bribery, then I might be on to something.

• Stop bad behavior by doing something different: My bad behavior (I'm talking that behaviour that keeps me from writing, here, not those bad things I've done in the past!) is telling myself I need to feel inspired to write. As in my current mindset, which is, I can only write when I have lots of time and freedom and am hidden away in the woods. If that's what it takes, then I'm never going to finish this book. So what should my something different be? Thoughts?

And finally, this didn't come from the article, but from my dear husband, who never stops being supportive.

"Write something on that blog of yours everyday. Even if it's just two sentences." He's right. If I can update twitter, I can write a little post.

So there we have it. Think I can pull it off? Stay tuned tomorrow.

PS: I had no idea who Shirley Jump was, so I googled her (did you know Google doesn't want to erode their brand by turning their search engine into a verb? Silly google. It's too late for that. We all go googling.) Anyhow, turns out she has a blog, and I like it. At least the first few posts I've seen. She writes about writing, and food, and drinks. I think I'll like her blog a lot. I linked to it above. So if you click on her name, you too can read about food and drinks.