How I Learned to Pulverise my Inner Procrastinator and Get Writing
Just, er, do it.
For 25 years or so, I bored people about how I was going to write a novel.
I had periods in my life when I had lots of time to get started on one. As a student, I spent a year as a teaching assistant in France, where my duties were light and my time was mostly my own. Later I worked for several years as a freelance journalist, where I could organise my entire schedule however I wanted.
But somehow I just never got round to getting started, not really. It wasn’t like I was doing something else really important instead. I was just too busy… doing not very much. Or talking about all the books I was going to write.
I had a friend in a similar position. We were both obsessed with literature, mad about certain authors, desperate to get published. We’d sit in the pub for hours and rave about the books we were going to write.
One night, we even made a pledge to jack in our jobs and head for the hills, where we’d rent a tiny cabin and finally get started. But — as I relate in this story — next day came round — and found us both still in our day jobs. The hills were merely a metaphor, it turned out. I found it hard to look my friend in the eye again.
