This is a blog I wrote for my English 100 students last semester. I was telling them about the project I'd been putting off for a while. I'd learned sometime in July that the anthology I was guest editing needed an introduction and it needed to be done by November. But not just the kind of introduction I can whip up in an afternoon -- a page and a half of enthusiasm for the writers included in the anthology. This was supposed to be 14-15 pages and include a literature review of what has been done in the field so far and an explanation of how this collection contributed something new. My first reaction was panic. Panic is a recurring emotion when I write, scattered at various points in my writing process. Often it comes in the form of profound doubt at the quality of what I've spent hours and hours working on. Never mind that I've published three books, I think. They'll be my last ones if this is the best I can come up with. Or so my thinking goes. The current panicked thinking went like this: I've never written anything like this before, I have no desire to write anything like this, and I don't know how to write anything like this. Denial followed quickly afterward. It came in various forms: 1) it's summer, November is a long way off. I have hikes to plan, kayak trips to make, gardens to dig. I'll think about it over the summer, make some notes, get to it in the fall. 2) Maybe I can get out of it. Maybe I can convince the publisher that this type of anthology doesn't really require an introduction like that. 3) I don't remember my contract saying anything about an introduction of 14-15 pages. The contract was 7-8 pages long and I didn't read every word, but still. I think I would have noticed if I was required to write a 15 page introduction. I wouldn't have missed that. I see that my denial has crossed over into whining. Whining is also an ongoing part of my writing process, which sometimes, but not always, includes blaming the person who has required me to write this dumb thing. When I was a student, whining also involved bafflement about why my professor had chosen this ill-designed assignment to torture me with. As an instructor myself now, I'm quite familiar with this step in the process, but that doesn't stop me from getting sucked into it. Why do I have to do this? Why did I agree to it? Isn't there some way I can get out of it? It was September 15th as I wrote this and I'd procrastinated for a solid two months. Ever since I did a unit on procrastination in English 100, I've been aware that my procrastination is not only laziness. It often springs from a real fear of the unknown. I see the pattern. The more unfamiliar the writing task, the longer I procrastinate. Knowing this hasn't stopped it, but it has allowed me to learn one small strategy to get unstuck. Here's what I do. I take out the assignment, in my case an email from the publisher, and I read it over. In her email, the publisher recommends that I look at the publisher's past anthologies to get a sort of template for how to approach it. Good idea. I picked one off my shelf and read through it quickly. It helped, and it sent me to the library to find more samples. This is a strategy I recommend. If you're stuck (or just procrastinating), first take out the assignment and have a good look at it. Next, try to find and read something similar to what you have to do. You could start by checking the OWL at Purdue website for samples, or you could ask Max in the Student Success Centre, or you could ask a librarian for suggestions. - Francie Greenslade
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OC faculty, staff & studentsWe made this space available to share our sometimes sorry, sometimes heroic, stories of procrastination. Please scroll down to read all the entries. To submit, send your entry to [email protected] Archives
November 2021
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