Excuses, Excuses | Teen Ink

Excuses, Excuses

June 30, 2012
By welcometoplanetearth SILVER, Devon, Pennsylvania
welcometoplanetearth SILVER, Devon, Pennsylvania
9 articles 2 photos 13 comments

Favorite Quote:
There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
-W. Somerset Maugham


As much as I love to write, I have an awful habit of procrastinating. Not in the sense where I don’t want to write, but more in the sense where I’ll tell myself that I can write that one piece later and ‘How about you write something different now?’ That is precisely why I am writing this. I’m procrastinating on writing my novel right now, and instead am writing about procrastinating on writing my novel. Makes sense, right? No? I don’t blame you.

Sometimes I have to force myself to write. That determination lasts for approximately five minutes before I break and find myself on Minecraft instead. I don’t even feel guilty about it. Is that right? That I’m having more fun murdering virtual sheep than doing something I want to base a career off of, and I don’t feel bad?

I’ve attempted to target the reasons why I don’t want to write, and I heavily express the word attempted. After several weeks, I have come up with nothing but this:
1.
I have no inspiration. Which is not true, because I already have a flow chart of the plot of my novel, but it sounds better than any other of the following reasons if anybody asks me.
2.
I have no time. Which is partially true, but then there’s these amazing things called weekends, so anybody with a calendar can immediately conclude that that excuse is anything but legitimate.
3.
I’d rather do other things than write. Which makes no sense, because I love to write, and am happily doing it right now. And to be honest, when your choices of “other things” don’t go much further beyond school, swim team, sleeping, eating, homework, and showering, writing seems like a pretty good option.
4.
I am a world class procrastinator. Which is obvious, but if someone asks you why you’re procrastinating, you’re not going to say that and then add it to your resume.
I think the one thing that we all got out of that list is that we shouldn’t put me in charge of making lists.
To be serious though, it’s always hard to target why we procrastinate. There have probably been thousands of scientific studies done on this, but I’m just too lazy to go on the internet and search for them, so I guess that’s up to you if you want to find out. Procrastination is kind of like chocolate. It tastes so good and you know that you shouldn’t be eating it because it’s awful for you, but after a while you get sick of it and go on to eating healthy foods again. Procrastination being the chocolate and doing what I’m supposed to do being the healthy foods. That will last for about two weeks before I fall into my normal cycle of procrastination again, but at least I know that I got something done. I think that procrastination is just part of our human nature. We can’t do anything about it. Or at least I can’t.


The author's comments:
What happens when I procrastinate.

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