Terry McMillan Quotes

When you find yourself on the Internet when you're supposed to be writing, you've already lost. It's even beyond procrastination when you end up on the Internet.

When I am writing, I try to do it five hours a day but I spend about two of those just fooling around.

If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work.

When distractions are manifold, it's best to remember what you are supposed to be doing.

Don't let ambition get so far ahead that it loses sight of the job at hand.

I always interrupt work with other work, either in a small way or big way, so that's normal.

The Web forces me to be disciplined and not to waste time - but before the Web was invented, there were plenty of opportunities to do that anyway.

I procrastinate in spades. In my defence, I also try to have all other distractions solved before I can concentrate on writing. My small theory is that to write for three hours, you need to feel like you have three days. To write for three days, you need to feel like you've got three weeks, and so on.

I should be concentrating on writing pages.

I have to avoid things like 'World of Warcraft' or 'Minecraft', otherwise I'd never get any work done.

I want to concentrate on work and won't do anything to divert my concentration.

The biggest challenge is to stay focused. It's to have the discipline when there are so many competing things.

When I write, I try to turn my Internet off so I can't procrastinate through the Internet, but then I just get deeply involved in whatever I have just on my computer.

Getting distracted by trifles is the easiest thing in the world… Focus on your main duty

Just concentrate on what you're supposed to do

You've just got to focus on what you have to do.

I write in spurts. I write when I have to because the pressure builds up and I feel enough confidence that something has matured in my head and I can write it down. But once something is really under way, I don't want to do anything else. I don't go out, much of the time I forget to eat, I sleep very little. It's a very undisciplined way of working and makes me not very prolific. But I'm too interested in many other things.

I have nothing like a writing routine. I sometimes have trouble buckling down to write at home.

A journalist also needs to be disciplined, and so do I. I am, essentially, lazy. Without discipline I'd be just a mass of gummy bears on the sofa instead of on book tour with my eighth novel.

I procrastinate all morning. That's when I get my office work done and answer e-mails and see what's on the Internet and do laundry.

If I know somebody is coming 'round, it is incredibly difficult for me to work because I'm waiting for this interruption - even the children's comings and goings are interruptions. Cake-making is a good way of coming out of that space.

I'm a full-time writer, which means I have the entire day to get my work done. But that can also be bad, because that means I have the entire day to get in my way.

The thing to remember is that the work comes first, and not to get distracted by anything else. If you keep focused on the work, everything else will fall into place. That's my mantra now.

I make time to write.

I tend to write in coffee shops and restaurants with friends of mine because if I'm at home, I get distracted by the television or the cats or my husband, or... you know - all of those things that make it easy to procrastinate.