The Most Spectacular Tools of Procrastination
More on The Lilies and all the ways I tried to avoid writing it
I’ve been writing a lot about The Writing Process this month, but on some level it feels like a farce. The truth is, there are some days where the tools I usually fall back on to get the ball rolling just won’t work. Enter the most spectacular tools of procrastination: the mood board and the playlist.
I recognize a lot of writers use mood boards when they’re trying to manifest new projects, but I had never engaged with this until I started work on The Lilies. I quickly found that collecting visuals was a helpful shorthand for what I was trying to go for tonally. When I was having trouble with setting, with character descriptions, with any sort of texture, I went back to my mood board for help.
Now, if you’re reading this and you’re a writer I want to caution you: this practice has the potential to be a total time suck if you’re not careful. It is very easy to allow yourself to be completely absorbed by the internet’s infinity of visual options. Making a mood board for your novel manuscript can quickly veer from productive procrastination to just straight up procrastination. There is inherent danger in this if you have a limited amount of time to write, but if you’re a minor thrill seeker like myself (I like to ghostride the whip right up to a deadline just to prove that I can) then go ahead and try to achieve singularity with Pinterest.
I’ve taken this practice to a new level on my most recent project by creating inspiration images using AI. Some of the fun in this is seeing how wonky image generating technology can get, depending on the prompt.
These images are still experiments in my process. I don’t expect they’ll wind up shaping the mood of the story I’m writing. More so—as I write about fictional technologies—they represent the strengths and limitations of the AI-powered programs currently available to the public. This doesn’t inform the tone of what I’m working on as much as it does the theme.
This brings me to my favorite procrastination tool: the playlist. Personally, I find music helpful not only in building tone but also for character development, pacing, setting/time period, overarching plot development, theme, and more. I like to select one song per scene or chapter and listen to it in the sequence that the plot will unfold. This requires advance plotting which means that building a playlist usually eases me into the writing process faster than collecting images for a mood board. I also find that my playlists for each project are less static than my mood boards. They expand and contract with each revision, hopping across genres with little regard for continuity beyond the emotional build of the story.
My playlist for The Lilies has twenty-three songs on it. At this point, it isn’t arranged into any particular order other than the fact that the songs that stuck around the longest appear first on the list. With four different narrators, music was especially important in getting into the right headspace to develop distinctive voices. When you eventually read The Lilies (pre-order your copy here), listen to this remix of Fiona Apple’s I Know before you dig into the prologue. By the time you finish chapter two, Frank Ocean’s Super Rich Kids might take on new meaning. A time loop opens on Leanard Cohen’s Avalanche. I hope when you read it, this will all make sense to you.
Alright. This is the part where I tell you about book release details.
If you’re in the area come on out to any of these upcoming events:
May 1 - Reading at Barnes & Noble Atlantic Avenue - Brooklyn, NY - 6:30 PM
May 2 - Reading at Barnes & Noble Colonie Center - Albany, NY - 6:00 PM
May 3 - Reading at Possible Futures - New Haven, CT - 6:30 PM
May 14 - In-Conversation Event at Magic City Books - Tulsa, OK - 7pm
May 19 - Meet-and-Greet at Blue Cypress Books - New Orleans, LA -1:00pm - 2:30pm
You can pre-order The Lilies from any major retailer or from your local indie bookstore. I encourage you to get your copy from Massive Bookshop, an anti-profit, abolitionist, online bookstore based in western Mass.
Speaking of western Mass: I’m currently at Smith College doing archival research for a new novel! Stay tuned for reports from the Special Collections where I will be sifting through queer pulp fiction ephemera, literature on the spiritualist movement of the 19th century, and more throughout the month of April.