I have procrastinated terribly since publishing my 49th hub! I wanted my 50th to be special.  I wanted something brilliant for my 50th hub.

I have come up with nothing brilliant. But I've realized this "milestone" is hindering my productivity. I have a couple of decent ideas, just not killer ideas. Some of my best hubs in terms of traffic have resulted from "decent" ideas. I'm missing out on lots of pennies from Adsense, Amazon, Kontera and Ebay. What is a girl to do? How do you get that milestone hub pecked out on the keyboard?

Well, first of all, just write. As I am sure you can tell, that is what I'm doing here. Sort of stream of consciousness. I've about decided that writer's block is really just procrastination. I have to thank Lela Davidson for inspiration in her hub "How to Write a Novel in Six Months, Week 19 Drafting Update: Surviving Interruption"

Lela wrote:

I have to admit, some days don’t go as well as others. If you’re a writer reading this, you understand. If you’re a wannabe writer like I was a few years ago, you may be reading this thinking ‘oh yeah she’s just saying that’. No, I’m not just saying that. None of us ever just say that. The writing is often very, very bad.

Coincidentally, or not, I signed back up for FlyLady this week. One of the first hubs I wrote was about FlyLady's system for keeping a clean house. FlyLady's philosophy is that those of us who procrastinate are really perfectionists. We feel that if we can't do a job "right" we might as well not get started.

FlyLady encourages us to "hit a lick at a snake." I had never heard that expression before, though I live in North Carolina as does FlyLady. I've learned in my housecleaning that it means something like "at least wipe off the top layer of dust, even if you don't have time to knock it all off. There will be a little less to tackle next time."

I like that philosophy better than another I've been taught - that procrastination is about fear. But maybe both apply here. I am procrastinating about this "special" hub because I don't think I have time to do it justice, and if it's not perfect, I fear....what? What the heck am I afraid of? No one will like my hub? Who cares?! Someone will Flag it, and HubPages will Unpublish it? Again, who cares? I have 49 decent hubs - a couple of pretty good ones, if I do say so myself. If this one isn't good enough, well, I'll write another one!

How do you write your 50th hub? You just write it! Don't let it slow you down! Unless you are an SEO expert, you have probably been writing hit or miss hubs anyway.

That's what I've done here so far. But if you'll do as I say and not as I do, you might not have much to write about!

Write about your hubbing experience.

I love reading about other hubbers experience at hubpages, what worked, what didn't, how long it took to get traffic, make money, etc. I've been at hubpages now for 7 months. I'm approaching 10,000 views (probably in the next 24 hours), and I've earned about $15 from adsense, and $5 each from Amazon and Kontera. I just signed up for Ebay this week.

It's been very interesting for me to observe what works and what doesn't at HubPages. My first hub was about my relationship with my 16 year old daughter. I really like that piece, and I received some nice comments, but as of December 3, 2008 it has only been viewed 266 times since April 27, 2008, and 106 of those views are from hubpages.

Next I recycled six articles from my early writing days - one even from high school. Barbecued Snapping Turtle: It Sounds Worse than it Tastes has received 326 views to date and has earned me a little money. I know because my Amazon reports show orders for the wildgame cookbooks advertised on the hub. I personally think this hub is a rather silly little piece, but it turns out to be a fairly unique subject and apparently encourages purchases.

I've continued to both recycle old articles and write new ones. My least successful are my poems - A Poem from my Travels in England: The Gap has only 13 views - half are probably my own! But watching the traffic to Inexpensive Christmas Gift Ideas for Teen Girls has been amazing! Published 10/15/08 as a response to the HubMob, it is already my 2nd most popular hub with just over 1700 views. Only Tips for Recording Your Voice Mail Greeting published 6/20/08 has more views, and only by a few hundred.

I browsed the Internet. I read other hubbers' hubs. I read the forums. I looked over the Hub Requests. I cleaned my house. I watched television. I did all the typical mind-numbing exercises that we all do when we are avoiding something (except reading at hubpages of course - that's worthwhile!) Something about putting it on paper and admitting what I've been doing instead of publishing that hub puts a little fire under my pants. And heck, it influenced a paragraph that contributes to the hub!

Write Your 51st Hub Instead, and 52nd, and 53rd

I have a few ideas actually on paper, I admit. I wish now I had worked on those hubs and had them on my hard drive, ready to publish after *this,* my incredibly special 50th hub. Maybe one of those would have even turned out to be the perfect choice for number 50. Instead, I've just wasted time and produced nothing.

Technically, I did write my 50th hub without realizing it. I 'unpublished' one hub in my early hubber days and when I wrote An Inexpensive Redneck Christmas Tree: Ornaments from Recycled Materials, I forgot that my total written was different from my total published. Learn from my mistakes. Don't let a milestone turn into a road block. Just write!

^{Copyright Dineane Whitaker 2008 - Please do not copy and paste this article, but feel free to post a link using this url: http://hubpages.com/_ndwcopyright/hub/How-to-Write-Your-50th-Hub-on-HubPages}