Saturday, February 06, 2010

Procrastination: The Movie

Why haven't I embraced the use of a blog?  I resist blogging. It is hard to sit here and write it. And I haven't really explored this issue until now.  But alas, this is just another tool of the insidious inner-critic (AKA Monkey Mind) who works hard to keep me filled with excuses for not doing this.  Here are a few of them:
  1. I can't format these entries the way that I like.  I am a perfectionist about not only the words I write, but also how they appear on the page.  The text constantly lines up wrong (see the post previous for an example of this), the font ends up too big, or too small, or changes in the middle of a sentence.  There also are spacing issues, problems with bullets, a font changing in the middle of an entry, and more.  No matter how much I mess with it in editing mode, it still seems to be messed up when I post it.  I know that these are DEU (Defective End User) errors, and if I stick with this, and post many entries, I'll get better at it, but I hate, hate, HATE how it looks right NOW.

  2. Cutting and pasting content from MS-Word always causes formatting problems. Even if I use the Blogger tool.  There are many ways to work around this of course, but I'm stubborn. I don't want to use Google Docs to draft them.  Not sure, but isn't there issues in the Terms of Use regarding what rights Google has to the content I create?  A stupid concern, and maybe no longer valid, but I'm too lazy to research it further. And it probably doesn't really matter anyway since I'm using Google-owned Blogger and I've probably sold any creative rights (and my soul) I have for the Grist for the Muse movie or made-for-cable TV series.

  3. Pictures -- I'm not good at formatting them for posting.  I am also unsure if it is OK to link to other people's pictures to serve as clever illustrations to my witty insights because it might be considered to be stealing their bandwidth.  Google seems to think this is OK according to the help file, but who should I believe? I don't want anyone angry at me for this... Who am I kidding really?

  4. Pressure to produce -- If I commit to this, I really have to do it and keep writing. A lot. And maybe even resurrect the Grist for the Muse newsletter that was supposed to be monthly until I stopped sending it out two years ago.  The guilt about not producing is embarrassing since that is the central point of what I teach. Write every day. Even if it is crap. Just do it.

  5. I have to admit that I've been a slacker -- I spend too much time on Facebook. I haven't finished remodeling our master bathroom that I started back in 2006.  I have a book review to post.  I've got a sinus infection and I want to lay here reading comic books and catch up on The Big-Bang Theory on TiVo.  I need to vacuum the master bedroom. It is hard to admit I haven't practiced what I've preached lately.
Tune in for more reasons for procrastination... sometime in the future...

4 comments:

Alanna Klapp said...

Hi Michael! I love this post! The picture is great! I love reading your blog because it is so very human. All of us who write have the exact same issues (just different details) and the result is we feel the exact same kind of guilt. We all procrastinate. One of my favorite blogs ever is the Procrastinating Writers Blog. If you get a minute next time you feel like procrastinating, here's the link:
http://procrastinatingwritersblog.com/
I really do think you will be inspired by it. I love it (especially when I am procrastinating becuase you can feel like you are putting your time to good use reading this blog). Really fabulous stuff.
Happy Writing, keep at it!

Michael said...

I took a look at the ttp://procrastinatingwritersblog.com site and it looks quite interesting. I will be checking it out from time to time. Thanks!

Alanna Klapp said...

I'm glad to hear that, I thought you might find it interesting.

Ched said...

If you paste into the Blogger editor on the "Edit HTML" tab instead of the "compose" tab, it will strip out all of MS Word's tags and metadata (though, along w/ other formating).

Or, if you're not on a mac, just paste it in "notebook" first, which will have the same effect.

Incidentally, I've enjoyed reading your blog.