How do you get into story headspace / procrastinate?

[WildBoots]

Sometimes I manage to convince myself that Setting the Correct Mood is vital to writing effectively and definitely not just another form of procrastination. However, it does speak to the "flavor" of each of my stories too, so it's still fun. Spring is very much a green tea and indie folk kind of story, and Divides likes a cheap beer and blues rock or techno. And oh my god so many playlists. I literally have seven different playlists for each fic.

How do you procrastinate get into the mood of your stories?

 

[myuma]

... by procrastinating even more and daydreaming random scenes from the story instead of trying to write them...

Music tends to distract me from doing actual work, but I love the idea of coming up with playlists to suit a story's or character's vibes! I also like to research the story's setting, which involves going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole of information I'll never need nor use. More fun story-related-activities-that-aren't-writing include doodling my characters, and posting about writing on fanfic forums while not having written a word all week.

 

[Shadow of Antioch]

Music's an interesting case; sometimes it helps me concentrate, other times I find that I need complete silence to get words down lest I start focusing on the music more than on the document. Usually, though, it's all down to consistently forcing yourself to write. I'm, uh, still working on that consistently part.