Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Let's Hear It For Procrastination!

Remember when I said my goal was to post on here daily?
Yeah, that didn't work out.

From a procrastinatory standpoint, this blog has been wildly successful!

Unfortunately for the purposes of actually writing said blog, however, I happen to excel in the fine art of pushing off my obligations and forgetting my leisure commitments... even the online ones. It's an uncanny ability few possess, and I'm proud to brand myself a slave to the all-powerful force of Procrastination.

Allow me to elaborate by telling you the story of how I published a book with multiple grammatical flaws because I was simply too lazy to expend time on the computer to complete it.





So this one time I was telling a bedtime story to my sister.

Apparently it was an okay story.

Now, it happened to be the very eve of when I had a creative writing assignment due; in which I was supposed to elaborate on a well-known fairy tale or fable to lengthen it to a descriptive two pages. But, seeings how I had neglected to do said assignment and coincidentally came up with a  workable story line, I felt I should actually complete my homework.

I locked myself in my bedroom and began the strenuous writing process. 

I wrote until I died.
Sort of.

Several times.

Until, at last, I had it all down on paper.

The next day was fairly uneventful. We all turned in our meager reports.

My eighty three pages of entire dedication and devotion was apparently a little too much.

The fairly eventful part of the day came when I happened to glimpse another student shifting through a stack of paper- MY WORK!

What was I to do?! She'd hate it! I would be disgraced- ruined- exiled from the creative writing community!

I bravely approached her.

Her response, however, was quite unexpected.

Eventually, after showing it to a couple more friends, I decided that I might be interested in publishing my work.

It wasn't an arduous task to type up the book, but the more I edited the longer it expanded to be! I was intent on the laborious joy.

Luckily, I had tea to aid me through the long nights.

At last, my work of glory was completed!

And I had a fabulous pen name.

I designed a cover,

Compiled my striking autobiography, 

Submitted my work, got it approved, and was overly ecstatic at these new developments.

And from that moment on, equipped with the mighty pencil, I was an author.

At sometime, however, my happiness shattered with the suddenly apparent realization that I would have to go back and edit my work for typois. Which ai maek alot ov,

Now, if you've never edited a novel before, you may be unaware of the soul-wrenching horror it is. 

And I, in my naïve innocence for the horrors that awaited me, eagerly began to work.



I resolved to work on it the next day.
And the next day; the day after that.

People began to ask me when my book would be available in print.

This was when the almighty power of procrastination firmly took hold.

See, the problem with procrastination is that the more you succumb to it, the stronger and more irresistible to latch onto it is. The guilt of missing one day, for example, can cause you to avoid the same commitment the next day. And the next and the next and the next until you are completely overwhelmed by what you've procrastinated and can no longer function as a productive human being as you just give up entirely and allow yourself to be consumed by the guilt.


To this day, I've never quite finished the edits in that book. I highlight all the errors...it drives me crazy every time I open it!

That's kinda my style, though. 

At the moment, I have about fifty half-finished books that will probably never be finished...


...All because I am a slave to the Procrastination.









Want a link to the book?
Email me at jrd.ahg@gmail.com