Just freakin' do it (+special announcment)

First, a special announcement:

Head over to Candyland’s blog to hear how she's raising money for the women of Ghana, West Africa. You can get your mitts on some terrific prizes, including autographed books, agent consultations, and author critiques. The money goes to a great cause, and participants include my amazing agent Michelle Wolfson (who’s offering up a 30-minute phone consultation) as well as my wonderful critique partner Cynthia Reese (who is joining forces with yours truly to offer a tag-team critique of a partial manuscript…something she explains beautifully on her blog today).

Go click the links, and GET INVOLVED!

Now, back to our regularly scheduled blog post…

So you know how I love to cook, right?

And you know how I’ve bragged about the number of cookbooks I own and recipe sites I frequent?

Now I’m going to show you my dirty little secret. You ready?

This is the cupboard that holds it:

Scary, isn’t it?

It’s a mess on many levels, but the worst of it is the mountain of recipes clipped from newspapers or printed from online sites. Each time I open that cupboard, I risk death by avalanche. Sometimes I go hunting for a recipe and get so tired of looking for it that I change my mind and eat tater tots. I’ve got at least a dozen more cookbooks scattered in rooms where no cooking can take place.

I need to get organized.

Funny thing is, I bought all the supplies to do that almost seven months ago. I’ve got a binder for the loose recipes, and little plastic sheets to keep them sorted. I know where most of the missing cookbooks are and could easily round them up.

So why haven’t I done it?

I could come up with a million excuses, some of which might be pretty creative. But the fact is, I’ve been procrastinating because I don’t want to do it.

I’ll admit, I’ve been known to do this in my writing, too. Even though I’m nearing the end of LET IT BREATHE, there’s still some research I need to do to round out one of the subplots. There are still a couple scenes I’m dragging my feet on writing. There’s no compelling reason I haven’t done these things, except I don’t wanna (which isn’t a very compelling reason, not even if I whine it).

Do you do this to? Do you have tasks that really wouldn’t take much effort, but you put them off a ridiculously long time? If so, join me in making a pledge to just freakin’ do it already. Clean that cupboard, organize that junk drawer, or tackle that annoying scene in your manuscript.

Tell me what you’re procrastinating and then pledge to get it done in the coming week. We’ll all report back here next week to brag about what we've accomplished and pat each other on the back for our progress. Deal?

Unless I’m killed by a paper avalanche.