Procrastination: Creatively breaking the blank
You wake, and it's a writing day. You know you have to do it.
It's difficult not to dread some writing tasks; it's difficult not to drag your feet over beginning at all. As per my last post (Just Get Your Mowing Clothes On), you can accept the process of getting ready in small increments, but sometimes even the littlest movement towards that Dreaded Looming Task is too much. Sometimes I'll make myself belt towards it like there's no tomorrow, but this doesn't always work either.
It happens that I can have coffee, paper, pen, keyboard, and task, all ready—and still have a big blank in my snaggletoothed head. It's not helpful for progress.
One of my strategies is to get up and do something else. I'm obviously not ready to start writing—that much is clear. Getting away from the place of requirement is easy enough—by comparison with staying propped there like a stunned galah, staring at the page/screen and bullying myself, it's easy!
Aha, you will say; you are procrastinating! Well, yes, I am; and no, I'm actually not. Procrastination is doing other things to avoid doing something else that must be done.
But what if you decide to see your need for procrastination as part of your writing task? Stepping away on this basis shifts the decision to get up and move away from the page/screen from being one of avoidance to one of progress: You are not avoiding your task—you are getting yourself ready for it, because you are not ready yet. Your brain is stuck—and sitting there can only escalate the dread and anticipation (and frustrated self-amazement) that tends to discourage your brain from coming unstuck.
A useful preparation-sequence I've come up with is to find at least five and no more than ten objects that I know I do not need for my Dreaded Looming Task. This roaming, rather ridiculous activity lubricates my imagination, and, when placed together, the juxtapositioning of all these objects can be both hilarious and illuminating. (HINT: If one or more of your objects is as large as a bicycle, I encourage you to make your assemblage a figurative place, like Borges' table.)
I do not recommend any boring, linear task (like paying bills), nor one that is achieved without thinking at all (like hanging washing) for breaking the blank.
It is a very great secret that academic writing is a creative task. I say it is a secret because "creative" is not what one thinks of when one has to write one's Methodology. (Indeed, rigour and clarity appropriately spring to mind on that head.)
But I'm not talking about content. The process of writing is always a creative one. How else do words get into their lines with their meanings intact? How else do sentences create reader expectation, and progress a clear direction of thought? You make them up, of course—you create them, by deciding to put one word together with another. Yes, you do.
So, on your blank days, get up from your tyrannical page/screen and go and imaginatively procrastinate—wake up the creative part of your brain and get it ready to write.
And, have a beautiful day!
Postscript
Here are some other creative blank-breaking ideas (even though I'm sure you will be able to creatively come up with your own):
Draw a picture of your supervisors (a flattering one, of course);
Fold an origami carambola flower (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnt4qb-x6eY—This one is particularly good, because even writing will seem easy after you try that flower—there are others that are easier);
Make up a story about something super-interesting, like toothpaste—that'll take some creativity!
Take a short walk and imagine everything you see is covered with snow (or sunshine);
Using mainly spoons, construct a model of a bed (—That's right! You got it! Play!!).