Monday, March 20, 2006

The Fine Art of Procrastination

I do not procrastinate well. I never have. It is not an art form I ever mastered. Back in my school days, I was never one to leave an assignment to the last minute. That was my brother. He would wait until the night before and then whip off something spectacular. It was quite annoying. He claimed he worked better under a deadline. Shades of his journalistic career to come. But not me. I would come home and get the stupid assignment done the first weekend. I hated having it hang over my head like this looming storm cloud about to burst forth its wrath on me. I couldn't relax and enjoy other activities with this thing hanging around reminding me I should be working on it, not ignoring that it needed doing, picking at my brain until it damn near drove me crazy.

No, procrastination is not for me.

And yet here it is, two weeks before my educational session on revising your manuscript and I have yet to get my head wrapped around it. I had planned on working all weekend to complete it, leaving me next weekend to review it. Didn't happen. I looked at the books, if you can call glancing at them on the dining room table as I walked through the room, looking. Actually it was more of a duck and weave, as if I could dodge the responsibility if I moved from the living room to the kitchen fast enough.

I don't know why I'm having such a hard time figuring out how to do this presentation. I think when I started, I had planned it being a session on different techniques to use to do revisions, but most of the information I am finding is what to look for when revising. So the scope of what I'm doing has changed slightly and I seem to be fighting against that thinking the people I'm supposedly educating, already know all this stuff.

Of course, maybe if I hadn't procrastinated and left it this long I would have more time to figure that out, but now I feel like I'm in a time crunch because I have to meet with my sister and the other maid of honor for her wedding next Saturday afternoon, which leaves me only Sunday left to work on this thing. One day to pull it all together and make myself sound halfway intelligent. While a camera crew captures it on film. My educational crash and burn digitally preserved for the viewing public. Great.

I wonder if it's too late to leave the country with no forwarding address?

2 comments:

Melissa Amateis said...

Once you get involved in the whole process, it will start to work for ya. It's just getting started that is hard sometimes, but I have faith that you'll do just fine! :-)

Anonymous said...

Besides, the microchip that RWAC implanted will help us track you down. Depends on where you go into hiding. If it's a lovely tropical spot with drinks brought to you by a cute waiter, we'll all go there and forget the session entirely.