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Avoiding Writing

Posted on 15. Jan, 2010 by Mike Key in Ramblings

I just found this amazing quote on another blog I follow and had to share it. It pretty much sums up how I feel this week.

Usually, writers will do anything to avoid writing. For instance, the previous sentence was written at one o’clock this afternoon. It is now a quarter to four. I have spent the past two hours and forty-five minutes sorting my neckties by width, looking up the word “paisly” in three dictionaries, attempting to find the town of that name on The New York Times Atlas of the World map of Scotland, sorting my reference books by width, trying to get the bookcase to stop wobbling by stuffing a matchbook cover under its corner, dialing the telephone number on the matchbook cover to see if I should take computer courses at night, looking at the computer ads in the newspaper and deciding to buy a computer because writing seems to be so difficult on my old Remington, reading an interesting article on sorghum farming in Uruguay that was in the newspaper next to the computer ads, cutting that and other interesting articles out of the newspaper, sorting—by width—all the interesting articles I’ve cut out of newspapers recently, fastening them neatly together with paper clips and making a very attractive paper clip necklace and bracelet set, which I will present to my girlfriend as soon as she comes home from the three-hour low-impact aerobic workout that I made her go to so I could have some time alone to write.”

— P. J. O’Rourke
The Wit and Wisdom of P. J. O’Rourke

I’ve noticed that I enjoy writing, but usually when I’m rambling about something. The rest of the time, when I know I need to write something, I just try to avoid it. I spend two minutes on it, then I think, I’ll come back to this. I have 20 drafts sitting here in wordpress for crying out loud. Maybe I should just start rambling on my blog. Might be more entertaining that way. People seem to think writing is some magical process, it’s not. It sucks.

Tags: procrastanation, writing