Discipline Medicine


Most writers suffer from a lack of discipline. The urge to procrastinate is strong as writing is agonizing work because it is done alone without support from colleagues, acquaintances, and friends unlike other occupations that take place in an office, a store, a factory, or some other location where people are present. Thus a strong incentive is needed.

Of course this motivation can take many forms: self-satisfaction, honor, glory, recognition, and money. One, or all of these, can serve as the drive to write, yet self-discipline is difficult to acquire and maintain. Sitting at a typewriter or computer requires conditioning; usually this involves a timetable, a schedule, an agenda, and an objective. The subject matter is the first contingency to be decided, and then the next decision is the format: Will it be an article, an essay, a poem, a short story, or a novel? Next is the time table for the work: Does it require a definite time frame, hours, days, weeks, months, or even years. Once this is decided a schedule needs to be set up, then the daily agenda, and finally the final outcome.

Even this will not eliminate procrastination. But remedies do exist to alleviate this condition. Probably one of the best antidotes is an assignment from an outside source: a newspaper, a magazine, a publisher, an editor, a wife, or a partner. Reporters appear to always meet their deadlines, article writers do most of the time, novelists often do, but writers who are driven by editors, wives, or partners usually do.

If the assignment is followed by a deadline, it can be a great impetus to work. Most people, and that includes writers, seem to require a time limitation to force them to produce, to finish a job. Beginning is easy, but continuing to a finale is burdensome and tends to lead to dallying. Writers can think of more reasons not to act than most other people; gazing off into space waiting for the muse to strike, dreaming of far off exotic places, any reason not to act comes to mind.

Another good motivator is the stack of bills piling up beside the typewriter or computer. If writing is the main source of income, it is a commanding inducement, especially if the wife or partner urges the writer to produce. The need to pay the bills can force one to sit and write, to complete the assignment, and to meet the deadline because the money is needed.

So the greatest remedy for lack of self-discipline is an assignment, a deadline, and a stack of bills. If all three are present, there can be no better reason to get at that writing job and to finish it.

Charles O. Goulet has a BA in history and a BEd in English literature. He has written several novels based on Canadian history that are available from Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Barnes and Noble, and many other bookstores.


MORE RESOURCES:

ABC News

Herbal medicine all-clear
Gulf Daily News, Bahrain - 11 hours ago
Researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) discovered one-fifth of US and Indian-manufactured Ayurvedic medicines they purchased online ...
A Dose of Lead or Mercury With Your Medicine U.S. News & World Report
Ayuvedic medicine: Toxic metals in remedies for sale on internet guardian.co.uk
Toxic metals in online herbal medicine United Press International
KOAA - WebMD
all 163 news articles


Teen accused of stealing medicine
Bethany Beach Wave, DE - 3 hours ago
SALISBURY -- A Salisbury teenager is under arrest in connection with the alleged theft of prescription medicine and cash. Police said Jordan Paul Adams, 18, ...


UW School of Veterinary Medicine celebrates 25 years
WKOW-TV.com, WI - 15 hours ago
Twenty-five years after it was established in 1983, the School of Veterinary Medicine is still the youngest school on the University of Wisconsin-Madison ...


Education plus medicine add up to a pilot program at an East ...
WBIR-TV, TN - 14 hours ago
"At this school we have lots of children on insulin pumps, we have tube feeders, normal catheterzations here, medicines that have to be given during the ...


If Medicine Is So High-Tech, Why So Much Illness?
U.S. News & World Report, DC - 15 hours ago
It oversimplifies the theme of this book, but not by much, to say that it is about medicine as all of us—doctor and patients alike—want to see it in the ...
Health Buzz: Skin Cancer and Other Health News U.S. News & World Report
all 2 news articles


What's In Paula's Medicine Cabinet???
Fashion.ie, Ireland - 21 hours ago
... and she not only talks about living with Abdul but she reveals what she found in Paula's medicine cabinet when she went snooping around!


Chatter Shmatter

Stunning regenerative medicine study cited
United Press International - 16 hours ago
"In a feat of biological prestidigitation likely to turn the field of regenerative medicine on its head, Harvard Stem Cell Institute co-director Doug Melton ...
Scientists aim to create stem cells without embryos Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Beyond Stem Cells: Scientists Master Cell Transmogrification Discover Magazine
Early Trigger for Type-1 Diabetes Found in Mice, Stanford ... MarketWatch
eFluxMedia - Nature.com (subscription)
all 363 news articles


New England Journal of Medicine Publishes Phase III Results of ...
MarketWatch - 15 hours ago
... the publication of results from the 682 patient, randomized, Phase III VISTA(1) trial in this week's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. ...
Takeda's Velcade Found Better Than Standard Blood-Cancer Drug Bloomberg
Combination Therapy Helps to Combat Myeloma Washington Post
all 16 news articles


San Diego Union Tribune

First Gene Associated With Dry Macular Degeneration Found
Science Daily (press release) - 9 hours ago
In a paper published in the August 28, 2008 online issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers describe the discovery of the first gene ...
Gene linked to eye disease San Diego Union Tribune
Gene Linked to 'Dry' Macular Degeneration Washington Post
Experimental Therapy May Lead to Macular Degeneration Newswise (press release)
Science News - UK News
all 41 news articles


airhostesses get strong medicine
Times of India, India - 12 hours ago
NEW DELHI: Going on sick leave to protest disparity of pay with their seniors has cost the Maharaja's young and fighting fit airhostesses dear. ...

Medicine - Google News

home | site map
© 2006