The song of a procrastinator.
written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this postAbout a year ago, I was asked to write an article for a magazine. I need to have it done before I fly to Germany next Wednesday and, uh, I'm frantically writing it now. A year ago. Doing it now. Do you see the problem?
Why is it that I can only work under the extremes of headache-inducing stomach-turning last-minute-stress? I can find a million ways to dawdle around until the last humanly possible moment to get what needs to be done, done.
I always get stuff done. I can't say I get it done well.
As it is, I'm writing and re-writing the article completely confidence-free. 50 percent of the problem is that the article is historical and my writing experience has always been creative/commentary in nature, or like a newspaper article from my reporter days. This is a whole new baby, with citations and sources and trying not to make it dry but not taking liberties...that's 50 percent of the problem. The other 60 percent is that I have no confidence in my abilities when I'm in the throes of whatever is required of me with a deadline looming - it happens to be writing, this time, and I feel like I'm writing it on the fly - because I think that there's absolutely no way I'm going to pull this off. And of course, 10 percent of that last part of the problem is a math issue.
I'm more for creativity.
I'm sure some of my regular readers remember the National Novel Writing Month fiasco I went through about a year ago. I'm sure I'll end up doing the same again this year, if I enter, forcing myself to write 15,000 truly awful words on the last day of the contest.
I could just scream.
Labels: writing, writing life
Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger 8/11/2006 04:45:00 PM
SHARE THIS POST: Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine
Like this post? Subscribe to the feed.
Click here to help support this site.
1 Comments:
Yeah, I'm going to be blaming that on you too because after reading about NaNoWriMo in your blog last year, I've decided to sign up and give it a try. :o) I haven't written anything substantial since college and am kind of looking forward to it... although I know it will be a kicker --!
Jen
By 
Jen, at
August 14, 2006 12:37 PM
