Progression and Procrastination

One of the hardest parts of writing is just doing the damned thing. My brain constantly seeks out distractions, anything to focus on something other than my writing. Partly, it’s because I’ve always worked extremely well under pressure. Paper due tomorrow? Sure thing, I’m writing it. Due next week? It can wait. Usually, the paper written the night before turns out pretty good. Of course, it’s never quite what it could be. I’ve made steady headway on my novel lately, progressing through Chapter 2 fairly quickly, and now I’m sitting about halfway through Chapter 3. It’s exciting to watch the pieces come together finally, and finally to feel like the words flowing across the screen actually work. I gave myself a tentative deadline of finishing Chapter 3 by the 1st of September, and worried I would slack off until then, but I’ve surprised myself with how much I’ve enjoyed working on my writing again. It’s hard to say if this will be a permanent change, or if I’ll return to sweating under the looming threat of deadlines, but I’m confident that I’m at least on the right track. With some beneficial schedule changes coming up, I’m sure that what once felt like a lifetime project will quickly turn into a rapid desire to complete before the end of 2021. It’s a soft deadline, but one I really would like to not wait until the night before on this time.

—Ricky