Whenever I procrastinate, I remember Dirty Harry saying, “A man’s gotta know his limitations.”
Back in the days of manual typewriters, during my early twenties, I bought a cute little portable, complete with carrying handle. The machine was so small the letter O doubled as the zero. I also bought a nice glossy Teach Yourself to Type book, and carried them off to a new time zone into my new hopeful home. And then what happened? They gathered dust.
A few years later, I took typing at college at night. The “for-recreation” class was full, so I had to take the “for-credit” one, among women learning to be what folks today call “administrative professionals.” We called them secretaries. Maybe to one day get a job in “Human Resources.” We called it “Personnel.” I practised typing half an hour a day, able to hit that little silver bar without looking—Ching! I remember we had to count letters in order to centre our headlines. I passed! Raised my Grade Point Average! And then… my machine gathered dust.
I started reporting for the student newspaper, in my mid-twenties. They had just bought four Selectric typewriters. (Not enough) At last I was doing some typing, but I still didn’t do typing exercises for a half hour a day, “as I really should.” Neither does an administrator go home and practise to get her speed up. And the salesman that leans over the secretary’s counter to chat, well, he only gets his sales up because he has a quota. Or maybe he does so not because he “really should” but because he gets a commission.
After all these lessons, one might think I had learned my limitations. Nope!
Covid came along. Lockdown. And there I was, like so many folks, deluded by a meme going around. “(Somebody) back during the bubonic plague lockdown wrote a classic stage play so we should all do something big too.”
Fortunately, I was following the exciting blog of John Scalzi, a successful freelance writer and novelist. Think how much courage and initiative it must take to freelance, and write novels. And, in Scalzi’s case, to also do a blog, which could mean stage fright if his blog is famous, which it is, so famous he gets hate mail for his columns. His snarky replies to bigots are hilarious, so he collected the comments in a volume called Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded.
So I paid attention when—to put it in my own words—Scalzi blogged that covid was depressing, demotivating, and even though he was a proven productive writer, he was not doing a big project… and those well-meaning, guilt-tripping folks who say that during covid we should all do some grand project… should go jump in the lake!
I get it.
In my sixties now, I don’t clean house because I “should”: First I invite somebody for coffee, then I rush to clean up. Write a novel? Me? Forget joining any monthly writing group—I would procrastinate… unless I found a weekly group, with me busting a gut to keep up with my Stephen King peers: Which has actually happened. Now I’m struggling but happy. I respect my my limitations, knowing I need to keep moving—keeping the dust off.
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Sean Crawford
March, 2024
Serving two masters: It’s been hard for me to write a novel when I have to put out an essay every five days.
Blog notes:
~I haven’t changed computers, but fifteen years ago I changed my keyboard software from the standard QWERTY (reading across the top row) to Dvorak (splendid for arthritis)—and no, I didn’t repaint my keys: The word is touch-type. I never look down because I get instant feedback from my screen.
PROCRASTINATION RECEDING: I must have grown, down the years, because I didn’t need to take any night school to re-learn how to type. I just used Dan Wood’s “teach yourself Dvorak” web site. And say, he reads Scalzi’s blog too, which I learned when I told him I had promoted him on Scalzi’s website.
http://gigliwood.com/abcd/lessons/
~As for blogs, I hope I never forget how stage fright is common for new writers. Statistics from WordPress are clear: Most people who get a blog template will then a) not post, or b) post only once, and then their blog gathers dust. Of course, by now blogs have faded into the background. Young people do video talks and audio podcasts.
~Wordpress is the best host-service for blogs. Scalzi, on his blog, once a year writes a promotion for WordPress because he like the company. For years I used a google-owned host-service:“Yuck!” Never again.
Update: WordPress SCREWED ME AROUND (neither their help forum nor google nor video tutorials could help—seriously!) so you might consider Weebly. It’s the web service young people use, and a webmaster who said WordPress worked badly for her nonprofit society complex website switched to Weeby and found it much better. And she couldn’t help me with my WordPress problem either! (So I wrote an essay, but I will never inflict it on my dear readers)
Penelope Trunk, a famous blogger (Who likes my site) has a link in her archives to a number of her posts about how and why to start a blog.
