Save your world. Write.

Yesterday, we talked about procrastination, and why it works. Because when you get down to those last few minutes, you know you have to write, you have to finish. This works great for me, but that is because I have a hero complex. Come along. We’re about to geek out.

The Hero Syndrome

I know a lot of people who cannot handle the pressure of a last-minute deadline. I was one of them when I was small. The thing is, I need an impetus, a push. I need a reason to write, and I realize that there are a good many romantics who consider breathing to be a good enough reason to write, and I hope that they all make lovely poetry somewhere, preferably at the top of a tree where I can’t hear them. I choose to not be a poet. I think the whole pen-and-sword thing started because writers need to believe themselves heroes in order to get any work done, ever.

If you don’t get the writing done, horrible things will befall you. The rent won’t get paid, you’ll starve, you’ll have to subject yourself to the horrible tyrant at the Widget Factory and be chained to a cubicle and have fluorescent lights shined in your eyes forever. The weight of the world is on your shoulders. You are the only one who can get it done. You are the chosen one. You are the ring-bearer, Frodo. You are the hero. You are the child, Bastion. Save us. The force is strong within you. There is no one else. You, and only you, can keep your world spinning.

Think. Fast.

You have to think. Shutting your eyes and jumping only works at the very last moment, just before the explosion happens and you’re shot across the atmosphere in a very cool movie still. Before that happens, there’s a moment of inspiration. Listen to it. What are you going to do? What are the first words going to be? You have to decide, and you have to decide now. There’s just no more time.

Make the decision and stick with it. No time for waffling. If you figure out something brilliant halfway through, you can change tactics, because that is the privilege of the hero. If some magical connection suddenly clicks into place, spin around and go in that direction. You’ve already started. You’re a man of action. (Or a woman, but seriously, being all PC totally ruins the rhythm of these things. We have to GO, people. There’s only five minutes left.)

Don’t look up.

The girl is crying, the sidekick is babbling, lightning is flashing, big explosions are exploding and someone nameless is screaming in the street. There’s probably an adorable puppy whimpering somewhere. Don’t look up, don’t you dare. No distractions matter at this moment, because the clock is running out. Whatever you do, don’t look up. Don’t check Twitter, don’t look at your email, don’t answer the phone. There’s no time for that. You’re writing.

Don’t stop.

If you stop, you’ll fall down. If you stop, you’ll stop forever. If you stop, Mount Doom will open cracks below your feet and it will always be winter in Narnia and the Nothing will eat Fantasia. You cannot stop. Keep writing, keep putting words one after another. Your words are your footsteps. You can correct them to keep yourself from falling down, but don’t ever stop putting one foot in front of the other. One word, another word, keep moving, keep going.

Believe.

I swear, nothing was ever so powerful as being a hero, ever. I got myself a big hourglass at the Z Gallerie just because it was the coolest, most romantic thing I’d ever seen. It measures out, shockingly enough, one hour, which is a good unit of time to get something significant done. A press release, your web content, the first five pages of your short story. Reach out. Turn the glass over. Start running, start writing. This is your world, and you save it every day. John Steinbeck said something amazing that is my official writer’s mantra. It goes:

“The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.”

My time’s up. Subscribe now, or the world will end.

Procrastination. It works for me.

Put your head down, your nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel, money where your mouth is, hand on the helm jam on the biscuit, weasel in the rabbit hole, martini in the left hand and pool stick across the right, for I say unto you: cliches are fun when properly abused, and they are an excellent way to pass the time when you ought to be doing something else. Like, say, work.

I procrastinate. A lot.

This is not my fault. I place the blame it squarely upon my dearly beloved professor of Shakespeare at the University of Chicago. This blessed gentleman was not only the owner of several of those delightful jackets with the leather patches on the sleeves – not to mention a bicycle, a full head of white hair, and an incredibly sweet and welcoming wife who didn’t seem to mind filthy college students in her house at all hours – but was also a scholar of no small distinction who had been teaching the Bard for over fifty years and had seen a paper written on nearly every possible topic on the subject. I mention this because he made ‘A’s contingent on producing a thesis that he had not seen before. In fifty years.

I spent a full day writing my first paper, and I’d like everyone to bear in mind that I write very quickly and generally spend a good deal of time ‘thinking’ about it before I actually put pen to paper. I got a B+ on it. ‘Good writing,’ said he, in his comments, ‘but I’ve heard this argument before. Also, you happen to be wrong, but you didn’t lose points on that.‘ Is it any wonder that there was a deep and abiding love in my heart for this man?

The next paper I consulted with him beforehand to make sure he hadn’t seen the topic before. He was about to go onstage for a production of The Tempest, he was dressed in robes and a good deal of stage makeup, and he discussed my topic with me so arrayed until he had to answer ten minute call. He hadn’t heard the topic before. I spent the afternoon writing it. I got an A-.

The final paper I completely forgot about. It was finals week, I had a class in global warming taught by a professor who bore a remarkable resemblance to Gimli of Lord of the Rings, if Gimli dropped the axe and the helm and discussed particle dispersion a lot, and I figured my studying hours were best spent on physics. I wound up reading the play (again, I’d read it once before in high school), deciding on my topic, and writing the paper all in the space of five hours.

I got an A.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I procrastinate. It seems to work for me.

The trouble is, while procrastinating projects works for me, what I tend to do with the spare time is never good. It usually involves pop songs, for some reason. These are the moments in my life when I tend to think, “What would I say to all my loved ones in the afterlife if the Apocalypse happened right now and we all got to view our last twenty minutes over and over again? Is there any realistically cool explanation for spending one’s last moments on Earth rocking out to nineties one-hit wonders? I don’t think there is.”

I could do cool things when I procrastinate. If I scheduled it right, I could be procrastinating certain projects while scrambling to meet a deadline on another. I could dance or sing or train squirrels to do the tarantella. But I keep putting it off, because none of those things have deadlines.

Procrastination is not the problem. The problem is, I don’t have enough things to procrastinate. If I did, I could be in a constant state of panic, and everything would get done, and it would all be BRILLIANT.

I’ll tell you all about it. Tomorrow.

Subscribe. You might miss it otherwise.