Top 10 (Internet) Ways to Procrastinate
Writers are world-class procrastinators. (We’re also very fond of making grand, sweeping statements that can’t possibly apply in every instance, but never mind that for now.) And the Internet has revolutionized procrastination. I was reminded of this yet again this morning as I clicked on Facebook links (Stephen Colbert was hilarious, and did you see that one of the cat in the sink?) and checked email –and checked it again―and again–instead of starting any of the three blog posts I was supposed to be writing. This being one of them.
I realize that non-writers use some of the same procrastination techniques we do, but we make a bigger deal about it. Especially fiction writers. Look at the quotes we like to pass around about our craft, such as, “Writing is easy. You just stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” (Gene Fowler) Hey, if we didn’t like drama, we wouldn’t be writing fiction, right? But the fact is, we do have to wake up and face that damn blank page every day. And it terrifies us. This makes us into procrastinating pros.
So, without further ado―okay, a little more ado―I’m listing my favorite, typical, or sporadic ways waste time on the Internet. I’m posting links, using Tiny Url to make them smaller―you do know about Tiny Url, don’t you? http:// www.tinyurl.com?–and I’m not even going to mention email, Facebook. or Twitter. You already know about the potential there.
Eileen Wilks’s Top 10 (Internet) Ways to Procrastinate
Google “time waster.”
In my current work-in-progress, RITUAL MAGIC, I’m writing a scene about a body found in Balboa Park in San Diego. Naturally I have to Google Balboa Park. I’ve researched it before, but want to refresh my memory. I’m interested in bike trails, so I click on that link, find a pdf map to download, then look at images of bikes trails in the park and wander into a discussion board about a race set on a bike trail there, when I realize it’s ten a.m. and I haven’t written anything yet, but I really need to know more about the flora in the remote areas of the park, so I Google that . . . great pic here: http://tinyurl.com/8kanp4v
8. A friend of mine calls the seemingly irrelevant turns her poetry sometimes takes “snake legs.” I love the term and use it for my seemingly irrelevant Internet wanderings, such as when I Googled “snake legs” just now, which took me to any number of science and creationist sites as well as this lovely translation of the story behind the Chinese idiom about painting legs on a snake: http://tinyurl.com/9f26zpe (I am, of course, convinced that anything I turn up about China, dragons, or wolves isn’t a true time waster, even if it has no obvious relevance to anything I’m writing or plan to write.)
If you Googled “time waster,” did you find Filler? http://tinyurl.com/96ocs82
6. Word Clouds. I can spend hours creating word clouds. I’ve got a mug with the word cloud from one book, and a t-shirt with the word cloud from another one. Waste your own time at http://www.wordle.net
5. I can use up huge gobs of time reading anything about writing or publishing or that’s somehow vaguely, tangentially, connected with books. Like this article about the goofy questions people ask booksellers (http://tinyurl.com/cgnf69p) or this cartoon about summer reading for cats: http://tinyurl.com/8vau9r6
4. Cats, of course, are another great time suck, whether on the Internet or in person. There’s always lolcats.com, but Simon’s Cat (http://www.simonscat.com/Films/) is my favorite.
3. Some of the snake-legs I follow turn out to be useful. Here’s some of the links I found for Mount Hope Cemetery, where the opening scene in Mortal Ties (out Oct. 2) takes place:
general info: http://tinyurl.com/dypkh67
map: http://tinyurl.com/3m2xq8y
pictures: http://tinyurl.com/3dgawz2 and http://tinyurl.com/9hlm3hx (Procrastination alert: this one links to an article with a great image of the entrance to the cemetery, which is mentioned in Mortal Ties . . . and the headline, “Human sacrifice survivor: Boy rescued from graveyard as his dad tries to hack off his arms.” You can see how easy it is to get distracted while doing research.)
2. Pinterist. ‘Nuff said.
1. And the Number One way for any writer to waste time is: checking our rankings at Amazon and Barnes & Noble right after a book is released. With Mortal Ties just out, you can bet I’m losing a lot of time here (Barnes and Noble) and here 
(Amazon.) If you haven’t wasted enough time yet checking out all the other links, please feel free to click on these and order a copy. 
Author Bio:
Best-selling author Eileen Wilks has 24 novels in print plus stories seven anthologies published by Berkley, Silhouette, and St. Martin’s Press. In addition to being a multiple finalist in the Romance Writers of America’s RITA contest, Wilks has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times.
Texas-born Wilks covered a lot of territory before settling in Midland, Texas–Canada, Venezuela, and twelve U.S. cities in five states. She comes by her wandering blood honestly; her great-great grandmother arrived in the state in a covered wagon. She’s wandered professionally as well, having tried her hand at everything from ranch work to waitressing to geophysical drafting. Once she discovered writing, though, she knew she had come home for good.
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Learn more about Eileen Wilks here:
Read reviews of the author’s work here.
http://www.eileenwilks.com/
https://twitter.com/eileenmwilks
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Eileen-Wilks/262221893169
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a Rafflecopter giveaway
Blood Magic is the sixth book in author Eileen Wilks’s Lupi series. It follows the adventures of FBI Special Agent Lily Yu and her now fiancé Rule Turner. After the ordeal both went through in last book, you would think they would get a little peace and quite to plan their wedding. But where would the fun in reading about that? Folks around San Diego are seeing their worst fears, and with Lily and Rule involved, it would have to entail magic. At the start of the story, Lily’s ancient grandmother disappears, and after an attack on Cullen Seabourne, it’s a race to find out who is behind this before they destroy San Diego.
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