Procrastinate Till You Make It
On leaving things behind, ignoring them, and then finally getting back to them
Well, here we are, September, and I did not post anything for August. I thought I was doing well with my monthly upkeep, but to no surprise to me, I’ve let one slip. Still, that shouldn’t be that big of an issue. August has been a strange one, lots of starts and stops, heatwaves that have more or less melted my brain to minimal functioning. Plus, I find myself in a position where I have been finding it difficult to really latch on to many things. Though the things that have been keeping my attention—like Better Call Saul or Elden Ring—have firmly held it. Still, when it comes to reading things, yeah, it’s been a bit scatter brained.
I used to use Goodreads to track a lot of my progress while reading a book. It felt good to have a record of what I was reading, and what I had read. Over time, though, I realized that Goodreads became more of a motivator then a recorder. My desire to read was being fed by that tracking of pages and percentages complete, rather than any interest in what I was actually reading. Oh, and don’t get me started on those Goodreads yearly challenges. I was obsessed with them—especially when I was hitting a consistent mark of reading fifty-sixty books a year. And yet, when I attempt to recall what I read, or how I felt about it, nothing vivid appears. Instead, it all feels like a blur of words and paper. So now, I’ve reached a point where I’ve had to reconfigure, or reassess, how I read. And I have taken the stance that forcing myself to finish something, might not be the best way to really enjoy it.
For instance, since the end of July, I have been reading the wonderful non-fiction book, In Memory of Memory (2017) by Maria Stepanova. The book chronicles Stepanova’s investigation of the objects from her late relative in order to attempt to piece together the narrative of her family’s life. The blurb at the back pulls in thinkers and writers that I love—Barthes, Sebald, Sontag—and while the writing itself does not disappoint, I have made the decision to stop reading the book two hundred pages in. Not from a lack of enjoyment, but because as a reader, my mind is not at a place where I am being receptive of what the text has to offer. Up until Memory, my reading was wildly erratic, ranging from literary fiction (Miriam Toews’s Women Talking (2018)) to philosophy, (Emil Cioran’s On the Heights of Despair (1934)). They were texts that I wanted to take something from, or to experience, and I did, but not in a way that I would like. Because ultimately, what I find myself struggling with, is an ability to not only read, but to assess, digest, and then present to a wider readership. To present to you, dear reader.
I want to be able to really be able to reflect on works, to be that person that is able to take something in, have a reaction to it, and then share it in a well-constructed manner. I want to be able to say ‘ah, yes, here I am, critic’. And yet, I am unable to produce a work that I would deem actively critical. At least, critical in the sense that I have come to understand it. Even in wanting to write about Memory, I have instead written about not-writing about Memory. I have taken on this strange Derridean approach to engage with the nonpresence of the thing, rooting myself in this odd metaphysical debate of pre/post supposition within my criticism—chicken or the egg? Who cares: what about the non-chicken, and the non-egg, I say. Oven baked tofu can be a great substitute.
Motivation seems to be a key factor here. For example, I have an idea for a long-form essay about Yoko Ogawa’s short-story collection, Revenge (2021). Last time I read it was around the time I was working through some interesting concepts around authorship and the Gothic. I really wanted to tie all of these things together, and when I started to plan to do so, I realized that the project would be a whole lot bigger than what I had time for. So, I shelved it. And it’s been there, waiting on the horizon for many months now. Much like Memory, I hope that I will get back to it, and in the past couple of days, I have felt more confident that I eventually will.
I’m attempting to reconfigure how I think about working, writing, reading, many other ‘ings, and adopt the simple idea that things will happen in their due time. I don’t want to rush through something for the sake of finishing it anymore, I don’t want to flip through pages to make a percentage tick up, I want to do things right, and I want to try and be kinder to myself to ensure that I do so. And I think I’m making progress. I am currently writing a new feature film which has been a constant in my life since roughly 2017. Since starting writing this one feature film, I’ve written a book, a TV pilot, four stageplays, and a few short stories. Oh, and everything to do with this newsletter and my PhD. And yet, five years later, here I am, still writing it, and I can tell you, dear reader, it’s going to be a BIG first draft. But the point in sharing this is that even after all this time, I still find it worth doing. I still find it worth pursuing and, as I work on it, I do think it is the best version of itself to date.
This newfound approach I should emphasize is no wait-and-see. It still involves plugging away at something continuously, but the context behind it is different. There’s no pressuring myself to try and complete something just for the sake of completing it. I’m not rushing through the next three hundred pages of Memory just so I can move onto reading something new and different. I’m instead just taking my time with it, getting to it when I can, and not letting myself become anxious for the sake of completionism. Though I will miss being able to brag about the velocity in which I can read things, or complete things, I can already feel a sense of relief in just taking ownership of my time a little bit more. Because ultimately, I want to be able to feel like I am really reading something, taking it all in.
I remember listening to a podcast some time ago while I was still living in Los Angeles. I was driving around late at night for one reason or another and the podcast (likely David Naimon’s exceptional Between the Covers) had a guest on who was speaking about the act of reading. They were discussing how their students would read a particular text, be able to finish it rather quickly and recall key points, but wouldn’t be able to recall anything granule. Yes, they could tell you how the narrative got from A-to-B, but they couldn’t say anything specific about how it was written, or a particular scene they really loved, and recall it in great detail to illustrate their point. I often think back to that moment to remind myself that I want more for myself when it comes to my reading, and consequently my writing. Memory will be my first experiment in whether I can do that with my reading, whether I can really give it the time it deserves to have its full effect.
Within the first two hundred pages, Stepanova indicates that the writing of Memory had occurred over her lifetime. It started when she was sixteen, and it continued up until its publication in 2018. It took her thirty years to write the book in total, and while I hopefully won’t be taking that long on many of my projects, it’s a little something to just put it all in perspective. And if my PhD has taught me anything so far, it’s all about perspective.