Arrrgh! Can you tell me why, when I like to write, and I can write more on the drop of a hat than most people can imagine writing over the course of weeks, it’s so difficult to write something when it’s an assignment? I’ve been procrastinating to the point of absurdity about a paper that I needed to write for work, mainly because I was never given a firm deadline (note to self: always assign oneself a deadline in the future if one is not specified).
Finally, after a third–or was it fourth?–question from my boss about this paper, I settled myself down to the process of writing it. And this is after I’d already done all the research, organized my thoughts, come up with references, and sent the resulting outline to him! And yet somehow, even with the paper half-written already, it was like pulling teeth to wrap the sentences around the ideas!
Bear in mind, this is a subject that I enjoyed thinking about, even writing about. It concerns the future, and what we should be doing to encounter the future in my workplace. It’s interesting stuff, and I think the paper is worthwhile and relevant. (As for whether anyone will read it, that’s debatable, but then, I blog–and you never know if anyone is going to bother to read you there or not anyway, so I think I write because I MUST write, not because I must have an audience…) But it came down to making myself sit down for hours in front of the computer, at home when the building closed up at work, because I simply cannot write a paper unless it’s all in one fell swoop and I force myself into harnessing my thoughts and spilling them on paper. Or a computer screen, since I guess paper doesn’t factor in until later.
It just irritates me that it should have to be this way… because I really do like to write. I even like to write for work! Am I just developing a lack of discipline because now I’m so used to writing ad hoc in this sort of format? Am I incapable of reining myself in and writing something restrained and organized and on topic?
Actually, that might be part of it–I find that I truly resent all the papers I’ve written in the last few years because I want to be able to meander all over the place when a thought strikes me. I know that’s not conducive to good essay writing, of course–and what is a paper for work but an essay?–but it’s still annoying to have to cull out the thoughts that are leading me astray. Also, I find that I’m never satisfied with the finished product–I know at my core that there is SO MUCH MORE that could be said, maybe should be said, about my topic, and I barely brushed the surface of it… and yet if I were truly to write everything that should be written, the paper would be a book (and then there would never be any chance of anyone reading it).
Oh, I don’t know. I can see this is why I’ve never gotten around to writing those books that flit around in the back of my mind…
Posted by Kjirstin 
