Things To Do When You Should Be Writing

In preparation for NaNoWriMo, which begins on Saturday (Eek!), I've decided to get a little bit of a head start on my procrastination to-do list for November.

Lately, I've found myself doing a number of things instead of scribbling (having a light workload got me into some bad habits), so it's time to compile that procrastination list.  That way, when I really need it next month, I'll have it easily on hand.

So here, in no particular order, are things you can do when you should be writing.  (Feel free to add your own in the comments, of course.)

• Read En Tequila Es Verdad for your daily dose of a "fountain of liberal rage."
• Check your email.
• Make and drink a pot of coffee.
• Rewrite your to do list with nicer handwriting.
• Better yet, you should do it in Microsoft Word, then print it out.
• Add to your to do list.
• Make sure your books are still alphabetized by author's last name.
• Visit the forums for NaNoWriMo.
• Update your status on Facebook to say "NP is not scribbling."
• Vacuum the living room.
• Play fetch with the cat (yes, one of my cats plays fetch).
• Make Thanksgiving plans.
• Read.
• Rework your NaNo outline.
• Adjust the font and margins of your NaNo novel.
• Play the Expert level of Minesweeper until you win twice in a row.*
• Do some early Christmas shopping online.
• Print your NaNo outline to put in a folder since you're trying to be more organized.
• Check your word count.
• Watch Law & Order to get character ideas.  (Don't worry about what day or time it is; L&O is always on somewhere.)
• See if any of your NaNo buddies are on AIM.
• Do some laundry.
• Gaze out the window.
• Stare at a wall.
• Look for writerly Christmas gifts online that you might want.
• Start a NaNo scrapbook to document your life in November.
• Go through your story and find ways to pad the word count (omitting contractions, changing all hyphens to spaces, lengthening lists like this one, adding mundane details that border on purple prose, etc.).
• Take a quick little nap to recharge yourself.
• Check the time to see how much more writing time you have.
• Watch the cat sleep.
• Blog.
• Play Mahjong Solitaire.
• Fill out an email survey and email it to everyone in your address book.
• Add page numbers to your story.
• Take the page numbers out.
• Add a title page.
• Add an Acknowledgements page.
• Add an "About the Author" page.
• Create an interview that could be included in the paperback edition.
• Come up with lists for your blog.

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*NOTE: Do this at your own risk. I once spent three hours playing Minesweeper trying to accomplish this goal.