Chapter 44: In Praise of Procrastination
Nothing makes writers feel worse about ourselves than feeling, believing, knowing we should be writing but are not. We stare at the ceiling. We check Twitter. Then check again to make sure essential news has not broken in the last four minutes. We make excuses: we tell ourselves we cannot write when there is laundry to be done, or gums to be flossed, or files to be deleted from our drive because Google says we have to.
We know what we are doing. We are not writing, even as we are sure that every other writer in the world is, at this moment, regardless of time zone, racing through their stories, leaving us behind, for like…forever.
There is a word for this and like actors who dare not refer to “M…beth” as anything other than the “Scottish play” for fear of jinxing a performance, we writers avoid that most self-critical of all words: procrastination.
There, said it. And let me take it a step further. I procrastinate. Just did. Not two minutes ago I went searching for a small enough Phillips-head screwdriver for the very small screw at the base of a clock that needs a new battery today and while I was at it I thought, better check on ingredients for tonight’s dinner and then, maybe before I write I should get some almonds. They’re a good snack, right?
You get the picture.
There are two kinds of writers. Those who admit they procrastinate and liars. The reasons the liars are maddening is because they insist they do not procrastinate because they do not need to; they just click on and stay there. To which I say, whatever gets you through the night. Not only do I freely admit to procrastinating but have come to believe it is essential. We assume we procrastinate because we fear failure. That is true, but only up to a point. We also procrastinate because it is vital for creativity.
If you don’t believe me, I refer you to John Keats. Yes that Keats, the great Romantic English poet who in a letter to his brothers, coined a term that does not so much justify procrastination per se as give it a reason to be: Negative Capability.
In a letter in which he touched on this subject and that, , Keats landed here: “I had not a dispute but a disquisition, with Dilke on various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously — I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason…”
The key words, I believe, are capable, uncertainties, without, and reaching. Or, stated less elegantly, being in a state when you allow yourself to be stuck and are okay with that.
Which is another way of saying: unproductive.
A frightening word, I know. If we are not producing at this very moment, then maybe we will never produce again. You will, trust me. You have before and you will again. And if this sounds a bit like falling in love after heartbreak – no one will ever love me again – I’d submit that the analogy is not far-fetched.
Just as we cannot force ourselves to be in love, we cannot simply will ourselves to create. Work, yes. Create, tougher. As with love, sometimes we need to pause to see if it happens. This can be unsettling, both in love and in writing, because it leaves us, as Keats wrote, with “uncertainties.” But it is in that state of uncertainty that, as I suspect you have surely experienced, illumination can occur.
If you are going to procrastinate, however, do it like a pro. I’ve been practicing procrastination long enough to have learned how to do it badly – at least for me – and well. I cannot procrastinate by doing nothing. Deep breathing. Mediation. Mindfulness. These do not work for me as procrastination because they are, like exercise, purposeful tools and therefore do not qualify as procrastination. Checking Twitter has its limits because there is too great a risk of seeing a Tweet about the best story ever written that’s been retweeted eight thousand times by everyone you know. Too close to work.
Instead, I’ve found that what works – and yes, procrastination methodology is as personal as your writing voice – is doing something that feels important but is not. Sports helps me a lot, especially baseball, because it can sustain procrastination year-round, given the off-season, and spring training, the 162-game regular season, and please let it be our year New York Mets, post-season. There’s a game every day and when there are no games there is speculation. Bless you MLBTradeRumors.com.
As you cast off your guilt about procrastinating and embrace its virtues you will begin to discover a certain cockeyed wisdom in running out to buy paper towels – as long as the task is not open-ended, like regrouting your bathroom tiles.
The best thing that ever happened to me by procrastinating was the day I told myself – at the very moment when I hadn’t a clue where to start reporting a book for which I already had a contract because I still wasn’t sure what I needed to know – that I needed to make sure the car battery hadn’t died. The battery was always dying, and I could not leave it to die alone. So I put on my coat and headed uptown to check its metaphorical pulse, and along the way kept asking myself, even as I worried about whether the damn thing would turn over, what in God’s name I wanted to know.
Had I been sitting at my desk, writing, I believe I would have gotten exactly nowhere because I was alone, defenseless against waves of creative despair. But as I walked, my anxious thoughts began competing for space in my fevered brain with a) the act of walking on a very cold day and b) wondering whether the car would start. A drama. Like baseball.
And that, in turn, kept the anxiety in check just enough so that when I asked myself what I needed to know for the one hundredth time the answer was able to slip past all the attendant noise about failure and emerge, fully formed and crystalline.
By going negative, or rather by giving myself a meaningless task that succeeded in diffusing my fear of not knowing, I was, thank you Keats, capable.
So yes, procrastinate. Because you need to. But please, do it wisely, in a way that best suits you. And do it with the knowledge that the time spent doing nothing of consequence is temporary. You will come back, ready to run.
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We wanted to let you know that given the tumult and uncertainty of the newest Covid wave, we’ve extended the deadline for our Diversity Grants to December 31st. You can find details about the program here.
Applicants should send a CV, up to three samples of nonfiction writing they are most proud of – it need not have been published -- and a letter proposing an idea for a story they’d like to work on, and how they’d go about reporting it.
Please send applications to delacortereview@gmail.com with the subject line GRANT APPLICATION (all caps please, to ensure they are not lost).
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And in the spirit of procrastination we’ll be taking a break until the New Year. See you in January. Stay safe and well.