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.
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3 comments:
I'll call your Relative Stranger and raise you two Stranger Relatives.
I've got another kitchy gift to report. On a visit to an aunt's house, we were shown some rather bizarre "collectibles," including a room full of Garfield dolls of every size and shape imaginable and shelves and shelves of Native American Kachina dolls, dreamcatchers, and other artifacts. We then politely accompanied said aunt to the local shop (this was in Southern Utah) where the Native American stuff was purchased and were not allowed to get out of there without one of these guys. He's called a "mud head," and though he doesn't exactly fit in with our country French decor, he does come in handy when I'm writing a scene that requires an immediate, visceral sense of abject horror. As such, he sits on a shelf just below my poetry books. (Okay, who have I offended now?)
This is great, Deucerman, and thanks for linking to the pic. Any connection between "abject horror" and poetry??
I'd also really like to see that "room full of Garfield dolls" . . .
Well, that depends. No abject horror if it's, say, Robert Bly or Philip Booth. However, there is one big nasty volume in there that has multiple Ezra Pound poems in it, and knowing that, I'm resisting running from the room as I type this.
And that room full of Garfields was frightening, mainly because of the inner battle: Do I get a gattling gun and reduce it to a cloud of feathers, or do I jump in and nestle myself in all that propitious fluffiness???
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