New Links and Procrastination

I've spent the past couple of weeks adding links from fellow romance authors to the space at the right. I hope you have a chance to visit the pages of some of these awesome authors. You'll also find links to New Concepts Publishing who publish my romance novels, my children's book site, and the home page of my children's book publisher Kittycat Books.

I've been in procrastination mode this past week. Guess I'm dawdling over revising a manuscript. Here's what's going on. I've started writing the first draft of the last book in a three book series. I got to a point where I realized I'd forgotten little details from the two earlier books. So I went back and read the first story, which is a completed manuscript that my agent is shopping around, and started taking notes. You know, hair color, eye color, names, places, and stuff like that. The second book in the series is finished in draft form but instead of taking the time to edit/revise when the first draft was done, I just started in on the third book. Big mistake. I started having trouble with who did what and when, the timing of everything was off. So now I'm reading the second manuscript and doing some revision work at the same time and taking notes, of course. It's kind of tedious work. Okay, necessary because rarely does an author get it completely right on a first draft. And I always learn a lot about my own writing when I revise and edit a manuscript. But I really am itching to get back to the third story. So I'm finding ways to keep from doing the revision.

With that in mind, here's my list for today.

5 ways to procrastinate when you should be writing:

1. Write a blog post. :)
2. Online catalogs are great, I spent way too much time today "shopping" for things I don't need and will never buy.
3. Check my email over and over and over again.
4. Staring out the window. I could say that I'm brainstorming or my right brain is working something out, but mostly I'm just staring out the window.
5. Making a list of all the things I should be accomplishing and are not.

How do you procrastinate? Do you convince yourself it's all part of the creative process or allow a little guilt to seep through. Please write something. Reading it will give me something to do when I should be writing!