Dancing the Procrastination Polka with the Procrastination Goblin (A Love Letter)
And for the record, it wasn't a lot of fun
Hello lovies,
Have you ever had a day when you procrastinated all day and you couldn’t make anything happen no matter how hard you tried? (If you haven’t, please do not tell me because it will make me feel very bad.)
I had that day yesterday.
And I don’t care what anybody says, it’s not fun. It feels awful.
I couldn’t connect with anything—my novel WIP, a new project that has fallen into my lap (more on this soon, it’s very exciting), reading manuscripts for clients, and this newsletter.
This newsletter was the most pressing, because it is supposed to come out on Sunday mornings and while most people don’t notice, I do get emails from some if it doesn’t appear. Also, it’s one of my favorite things I do all week.
I had a succession of ideas for it but I couldn’t get any of them to go anywhere.
What I should have done was admit defeat, sink into, maybe crack the bottle of wine as the pug in the image advises. But I didn’t. I obsessed. Which means sitting at my computer, pretending like I’m working but really not. Instead I read stories from the New Yorker because that’s a highbrow good excuse for not writing, right? And I cleaned out my inboxes, a useful thing, correct? But then I resorted to perusing stitching projects and looking at yarn.
I should have just gotten up from the computer and done some actual stitching or knitting. (Or maybe hit the wine bottle. Or both.)
Finally, in desperation, I asked AI for help. Using Google’s Gemini (formerly called Bard, which I liked better) I asked for some words on a writer procrastinating, written in a friendly manner.
Let it be know that Gemini came up with the terms “procrastination polka” and “procrastination goblin” of this newsletter’s title. Don’t worry, I won’t use them ever again because they are too cute by half. And it (they, he, she?) also said this:
But here's the thing: We're not alone! Procrastination is a universal writer's experience. F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said, "I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm inspired at four o'clock in the afternoon." (We see you, F. Scott!)
Okay, no. Not my style.
So I went back to deleting emails out of my inbox. Which is when I finally found something good in Austin Kleon’s weekly newsletter. Which is this: we often talk about having a story inside us, desperate to get out. But what if it’s the opposite? What if the story is outside of us, dying to get in?
And I remembered a story I heard Elizabeth Gilbert share once. She’d had a brilliant idea for a novel to be set in South America, featuring an academic who goes on a quest. But somehow she couldn’t get the story going. Meanwhile, after a long correspondence, she met the novelist Ann Patchett in person. They immediately bonded, and Gilbert told Patchett the vague outline of her story idea. As they parted that day, they shared a chaste kiss on the lips.
A year or two later, Patchett came out with the novel State of Wonder. Which featured an academic who goes to the Amazon on a quest to find her mentor. (And is also a fabulous book, in my opinion.) As Gilbert tells the story, somehow the kiss transferred the story from her to Patchett. The overall idea being that stories are all around us, circling, looking for somebody to tell them.
And if you’ve ever been struck with the idea for a story out of the blue, this will ring true for you. Sometimes the origin of an idea is far less clear—but still, I submit, all that information scrolling and surfing lodges inside and somehow it combines to create ideas.
Which makes me grudgingly admit that sometimes procrastination is necessary, that maybe there’s a reason for it. So maybe the pug’s idea is right.
Love, light, and good writing,
Charlotte
P.S. Tell me your procrastination stories, please. Has procrastinating ever resulted in a good idea for you? Or led you down an unexpected path?
Articles and Resources
My podcast is live! You can listen to it/watch it here.
I wrote a mid-week (ish) newsletter about fun ways to inspire your writing this summer. It’s for paid subscribers, but there’s a lot of good free stuff before you get to the paywall.
Get re-excited about your writing.
“Experience has taught me that one idea will produce another idea. Shape will come later.” Wise words from Hanif Kureishi, whose Substack is always highly readable.
How to develop a distinguishable writing voice.
Books
Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Story, by Nicholas D. Kristof. Local boy makes good. The son of immigrants, he was raised on a farm in nearby Yamhill County and went on to become a journalist for the New York Times. I just started it, and I’m engrossed. Update: Finished! It was loong, but I persevered to the end. I highly recommend this book. It will remind you of the old days when journalism was an exalted profession, at least to some (me included).
The Cloisters, by Katy Hays. I saw a description of this novel somewhere in my travels, and I bought it immediately. She had me at tarot cards that might hold the key to predicting the future. Update: Haven’t started it yet, because I forgot about it! (Hazard of the too-big TBR pile.) Instead I started the book below because it was waving to me on my Kindle.
Let’s Pretend This Will Work, by Maddie Dawson. I’m a fan of this author’s novels. They are light and breezy and fun and funny. And this one is no different. Only a few pages in, but I’m enjoying it.
Overseas Workshops
We’ve got our eyes on two upcoming workshops in September. Blog posts on our website will tell you all about the location of our France workshop and why we love it so much. You can read about art and artists in Céret, the crazy annual footrace there, and best of all, the wonderful local bakeries. Nab your spot now. And here is the promised interview with our guest resident Angela M. Sanders (written by the wonderful Shari Lane, whose book is also wonderful!)
And here is the most recent blog post about Perugia.
Other places to connect with me:
Instagram (trying to get back on there more regularly)
My website (badly in need of an upgrade)
Our workshop website
My original blog (now for archive purposes only, no longer updated)
That’s it for this week!
This newsletter contains affiliate links, which means I get a slight kickback if you order through me. And by slight I mean slight.
Procrastination and I are old friends, so your newsletter resonates deeply. Usually, puppy videos on social media, a walk, or calling a friend are the ways I procrastinate. I definitely work better when I have a deadline than when left on my own to create a timetable.
Oh my goodness! Yes! The number of times my husband has opened the door to my studio and I’ve said, “I’m just looking at my wool.”