advice post on procrastination

Just a quick advice post here, since I was reminded of one of the key causes of writing procrastination: namely, most pieces of written work tend to be dissatisfying at first compared with what one imagined being capable of.

After a certain point, birthdays will make you feel pretty old, and you start vaguely estimating how many you might have left. So, I was in the mood to start putting down everything I think I know in writing. (Not that I expected to do it one day, just that I expected to start it today.)

Quantitatively, the results were pretty good. I wrote five pages fairly summing everything up, and when I looked at the clock was stunned that it only took an hour and ten minutes to do so.

But then your next reaction is likely to be “this is terrible.” One of the advantages of not having sat down and written would have been the chance to escape that experience.

Once you go back and look at it, however, you’ll usually find that much of it is salvageable or even very good. You’ll have to trim some fat and move things around, but that would have happened anyway.

And to repeat, I think the key principle, when reading any sentence is: “Could I read this sentence to a crowded room with a good chance of not lessening their interest?” True statements can and should be made interesting.