Permission to Procrastinate

During the course of a wide-ranging conversation I had with a friend recently, I confessed that although I had the plot of my novel worked out, I hadn't been generating any more pages, and I felt bad about it.

"If I die it will be gone," I said. "I have to get the rest on paper."

My friend had a different perspective. She said it was good that I had been working on it in my head.

"That's where most of the work is done," she said. "Remember when we were at university together, and I used to leave my essays till the last minute? Then, the night before, I would write them whole."

It wasn't that she didn't think about the writing ahead of time. In fact, she carried the ideas around for a long time, working through them in her head until the essay was whole and ready. I did the same.

Her comment gave me a wonderful new perspective on the process of writing my book.

I am working on it, I realized, and when I sit down, it will come out. Not in a single night, like an essay, but in chunks, as they are ready. Just as the first forty pages did.

Perhaps the reason I don't yet see all of it in my head is that a lot of the "cooking" process takes place in my unconscious mind.

Now I know. My main job is just to sit down and record what is already there. That makes the prospect far less daunting.