PSM

Teresa Nielsen Hayden links to this advice on "Being able to write" from K.G. Schneider, the Free Range Librarian.

It's all good advice, but I want to quibble with one point. Schneider notes that sticking to a schedule keeps her focused and "less likely to waste eight hours piddling in pencil-sharpening mode."

Since when was "pencil-sharpening mode" a bad thing?

If it weren't for pencil-sharpening mode, I'd never get anything else done. Deadline- and blank-screen-avoidance can be an immensely inspiring, productive thing. This is when I do laundry, wash the dishes and regrout the tile in the bathroom.

The realization that you'd rather be doing almost anything instead of wrestling with that awkward transitional paragraph, or trying to fix whatever it is that's so off-key and abrupt with that concluding section, can actually be energizing and liberating. Rechannel that energy. Seize the opportunity to do almost anything instead. Do the laundry, wash the car, clean the rain gutters. It's amazing how much you can accomplish in an eight-hour span of such PSM piddling.

By "accomplish," of course, I'm not referring to actually writing anything. But your home will be immaculate and your pencils will be impeccably sharp.