Old-Fashioned Fruitcake
“while procrastination has its good side, more often than not it’s a destructive habit. It serves only to make us feel bad about ourselves, to delay the inevitable, to put us behind the eight ball. It generally complicates the outcome, impedes success and compromises brilliance.”
Lissanne Oliver
“Yesterday cannot be recalled; to-morrow cannot be assured; to-day only is thine, which, if thou procrastinatest, thou losest, which loss is lost forever.”
As previously mentioned, I don’t like angst. And yet here we are.
On Wednesday I shared my internal debate on whether to use my true and lawful name on this blog, or to stick with my nom de plume.
So far the reaction has been largely “stick with Sinistra”, but it is a complex and many-faceted question, which I would still be greatly mulling over if it hadn’t led me on to an even more complex and many-faceted question.
What precisely am I trying to accomplish with this blog? I know what I said in my first real post, but is that still the case?
Am I here to fight procrastination, and help others do the same? Or am I here to talk about my own struggle with procrastination, and the writing life generally, and books on writing I’ve read and so forth?
I admit until recently I thought I had the procrastination pretty well sorted. I had my routine, I was doing fairly well. Then I went on holiday and got sick (yes, at the same time) and it all turned to custard.
I fell off the procrastination wagon big-time, and am still staggering down the road in its dust in the apparently vain hope that it will stop and let me back on. So yes, there could be some worth in carrying on the chronicle of the procrastinatory battle.
But am I writing for writers or readers? And if readers, readers of what? Besides those of you who are related to me by blood or marriage (dear as you are to me, I suspect you would still be reading if I was blogging about the reproductive habits of newts a la Gussie Fink-Nottle), what brings you here?
What little success I have had as a writer so far has largely been in the area of theatre. I am a scriptwriter. Not that you’d know it from this blog, as I am currently working on a fantasy novel, which is an altogether different kettle of fish. Or apples. (I don’t like calling it ‘fantasy’ for some reason. Perhaps because fantasy sounds a little too wish-fulfilment and not enough this-world-doesn’t-exist-but-would-it-not-be-fun-if-it-did?)
Is there still space on the great wide interwebs for ramblings about writing, reading, and the mating habits of newts the like?
Is anyone encouraged by hearing of someone else’s battle with procrastination, won or lost?
Or am I more style than substance? Would newts do?
Your input welcomed, even if you happened by while doing research into the aerodynamics of custard pies.
Your obedient servant,
Sinistra Inksteyne 