I keep putting off the project I am supposed to be working on. There's a story I want to work on instead. Or I have errands I can't put off any longer. Or a stack of books I really need to read. Or marketing things to do. Or a blog entry to write for the day.

I know pretty much all writers do this. We feel guilty about it. The doctor doesn't get to put off a surgery because he would rather do a project that is more fun. The lawyer can't tell her client she was busy "thinking" about the case instead of going to court. They just have to get it done.

But writers' work isn't quite the same. Although our job is to eventually produce something, there is a lot of time that is spent producing it that doesn't look like it's producing anything. In fact, it looks like we're doing nothing. Maybe we are doing nothing, because being relaxed is necessary for creativity to work.

At the event I was at this weekend, I was asked several times where my ideas come from. I laughed because I can't stop the ideas from coming to me. Some of the other authors said that they wrote down ideas and worked on stuff all the time, consciously. I said I don't ever write an idea down because if it goes away, hey, there's one more I don't have bugging me in my head, demanding attention as I try to tell it there's another project ahead of it in line.

But where do the ideas come from, really? They come from nothing. That time you spend not getting done whatever it is you're supposed to get done, procrastinating, telling yourself that you should really be working. You are working, especially when you're not doing it consciously. Your ideas are being made. It takes a lot of effort, a lot of unconscious brain power. You're gestating, only you're giving birth to a spiritual child, and it doesn't take only nine months.