The Problem with Seconds

Dear Friends and Family (and Maybe a Relative Stranger or Two),

I’m sorry. I meant to post last week. I really did. I wanted to. I even laid down about 600 self-pitying and un-funny words, but they were self-pitying and un-funny.

It should be a Steven Wright joke: “I want to write a blog about procrastination, but I keep putting it off.”

(Maybe it is. Someone Google it. I would, but. . . well, YOU know.)

I thought a lot about it. And isn’t it the thought that counts?

Ask anyone who’s gotten a well-intentioned but unusable gift: The thought only counts for so much. (What’s the most disappointing or hilariously kitchy gift you ever got? Post to comments, or email me - best one will be used as the example here, with credit, of course.)

Thinking about the blog was going nowhere interesting. (See “self-pitying and un-funny”, above.) So I started thinking instead about why I didn’t want to write the blog that I keep insisting to myself I want to write.

It works like this: I do something on a whim, for fun, and it turns out pretty well. People like it. They want more. I feel a pressure (utterly self-imposed, I blame no one but myself) to perform, to meet - no, exceed - the quality of the first attempt.

And under those conditions, invariably the second attempt falls short. People (read: “me, myself and I”) are disappointed. The success of the first attempt was clearly a fluke. I am no where near as good as I think I am, or even could be, so why bother?

(Hey Mom, want to chime in here on all the potentially-good, too-soon-to-tell ideas I never executed on? “Why don’t you write more poetry?” you asked, bewildered by why I wouldn’t keep doing something I liked. “What’s the point?” I answered, the petulant teenager. “I’ll never be as good as Keats.” Groan.)

Practice, apparently, is for the untalented.

But that was the old, misguided, perfectionist, want-to-be-a-genius me.

This is the new, misguided, embracing-my-flaws, but-having-a-hard-time-with-that-because-I-still-want-to-be-a-genius me.

I have followed the instructions of Virginia Woolf and [SOME REALLY WELL-KNOWN-BUT-ONLY-TO-OTHER-WRITERS WRITER WHO GIVES ADVICE TO WANNA-BE WRITERS]: I have a room of my own and [THE DUTIFULLY FOLLOWED ADVICE OF FAMOUS WRITER CITED ABOVE TO FURTHER ESTABLISH MY WRITER-WANNA-BE CRED]. I can and will write a follow-up, a second blog post on intractable procrastination!

In order to get in the groove, or maybe ‘rut’ is a better term, I opened Klondike. The last time I played was the day I wrote the first procrastination post. It felt a little dangerous: an addict convinced she’s got some control. . . I made three plays and then ALT-TAB’ed to this blog. Klondike is open right now, it’s green screen visible in the window under this one, so tempting. So far, I’m resisting.

If I haven’t been playing Solitaire, what have I been up to in the last 11 days, while the rest of you contribute meaningfully to the economy?

Next up: The Wii as a form of self-help therapy.

- Melissa

PS: According to the amazing Google Analytics, 24 of you have visited the site 58 times and stay an average of 2 minutes. Thank you for reading and posting comments and sending emails, with support and advice and the tip on Adderall. . . To quote a non-writer friend, “Man, those comments are so earnest.” That’s cause other writers know I’m not really joking. . . Cause if I were, we’d all have to ask ourselves why the hell we want to do something that promises no pecuniary reward (“I’m not a [DAY JOB HERE]. I’m a writer who teaches/line cooks/sells other people’s books at the local Borders.”) and on top of that is so damn hard. And I got no answer to that one.

While trying to pick a name for this blog I did a little (a very little) research: Most blogs and websites with “procrastination” in the title refer to a particular method of procrastination - say, TV - rather than the subject of procrastination itself. Clearly I have hit a nerve, filled a niche, tapped into the contemporary zeitgeist in a new and original way, and am on my way to a million hits and book contract by year’s end.

Dirty Little Secret

Dear Friends and Family,

I have something to tell you: I’ve been less than honest.

You know how when we’re with Strangers Who Ask Me What I Do and I say with an ironic smile that “I’m blissfully unemployed”? And you laugh nervously and quickly step in to say, with obvious pride, “Actually, Melissa is a Writer," lest the Stranger get the wrong impression?

You know how when it’s just us, when the Stranger is not around, and you ask me what I’m working on? And you are so careful not to show your concern and so I’m real careful to sound all excited and confident as I tell you about my collection of short stories? And how I might turn one of the stories into a novel? And about my ideas for a science-related nonfiction book?

Bear with me. This is hard.




I’m not really doing any of that.

Don’t get me wrong. I want to be doing all those things. I think about them all the time. Then I spend all day at my desk not doing any of it.

Here’s how it works:

• I shuffle to the kitchen and make my coffee, shuffle over to my desk and sit down to write.
• Decide I should ease into it - check email, pay bills, surf a little. (Oo, is it Thursday? New posts up at Savage Love at www.thestranger.com and Dear Prudence at www.slate.com, my two favorite advice columnists.) Read other snarky social and political commentary on Slate. Check the headlines on CNN.com and Charlotte.com.
• Realize I’ve been surfing for an hour, tell myself I should write.
• Play solitaire. Twenty minutes pass. Tell myself I should be writing. Give myself ten more minutes or a winning hand, whichever comes first.
  
• Win the next hand.
• Deal a new hand immediately. (I said ten more minutes didn’t I?) An hour later, I CRTL-Q, disgusted with myself.
• Go make a sandwich and think about all the writing I’m going to do after lunch.
• Ease into writing by throwing in a load of laundry, answering emails.
• Play solitaire, pretending that I am letting all my ideas "percolate".
• Meet friends for happy hour and tell everyone how well the writing is going.
• Hate myself.
  

This goes on all day every day until a couple of days (ok, hours) before a deadline. Then I will work like mad in as much time as I’ve left myself, producing some work that will pass, but which I am never happy with. It’s never my best effort. Still, like I said, it’ll do. It’s like my mind knows exactly how much time I need to make something that won’t embarrass me.

Procrastination as a productivity tool - who knew?

But now I have no more deadlines. I have graduated and the freelance contract I had has ended. As you’ve heard, it’s not like I don’t have projects to work on. I don’t lack ideas. I don’t lack time, I don’t lack money (for now).

What I lack is discipline.

The stakes are high. I love my life. I have a sunny little apartment in an old building that’s been refurbished beautifully. The french doors by my desk look out on the lush green of well-established trees in this little hamlet of a neighborhood. My living room and dining room are lined with bookcases. My kitchen windows overlook the pool, and it’s like having a window on Melrose Place (but with more skin). My commute consists of walking down the hall (but only if I want to). I can work in my pajamas (and often do). I can schedule lunch dates every day (two or three times a week is more common); take the afternoon off and go to the park (I have never done this, but I like knowing I could.)

You get the idea. . . You can imagine why the longer I am out of corporate 9-to-5 office job, the less I can imagine ever going back.

I’m doing what I really want to be doing.

Correction: I have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see if I can make a living out of doing what I want to be doing. Every day I sit down at my desk, and I don’t do it.
I don’t even know if I could sell or publish any of these projects; What I do know is there’s not even a chance of publishing if I don’t write something. (It turns out that putting words on paper is a critical part of the job description of a writer.)

How can I want something so badly, and not be able to do it?

My new project is to find out.

Welcome to the Procrastination Chronicles.