In truth, it doesn’t. There you go, job done—time for a G&T.
Most of us, at one time or another, will have behaved like that. What’s the point? Why would I want extra work? I can’t be bothered.
For a couple of years, that really was me. I lost my wonderful wife to cancer in December 2018. For a year, I wanted to hide away, not socialise. The only thing that kept me going was the project to start a radio station but more about that another day. I looked for something to fill the enormous void in my life. I’d left the world of corporate IT a few years earlier as my wife’s illness took hold.
Thankfully, I realised returning to my previous profession was not the way to go.
Friends were great, gradually nudging me back to having a social life. In February 2020, I remember thinking, ‘Yes, I’m ready to give this a try, get out more.’
Then lockdown hit. I took it very seriously and stayed home. Day to day life was not really different from the previous year, very solitary, staring at four walls, with the addition of weekly quiz nights via video call.
It was in June that I decided to dig out the manuscript I’d started years ago. Enthusiasm for completing it had worn off as the number and seriousness of the hospital appointments increased. Could I use lockdown to finish it? More immediate – could I find it? Eventually, I tracked down an old laptop, jumped through a few hoops to get Scrivener up to date and stared at the word count – 7000. Surely some mistake? In my mind, it was closer to 30,000. Several more days of hunting for files followed, but it appeared that was it.
I had a choice. I could give up and pretend I’d never tried (a la Homer Simpson), or I could start again. I remembered the long conversations about the plot and characters and how enthusiastic my wife was to see it done. No choice really, I had to finish it. I obsessively stuck to a daily word count and, by September, I was typing the words The End. Job done. Feet up and watch the books fly off the shelf. Would it surprise you to know that wasn’t true?
So, why is it still not published a full year after setting my goal? Well, procrastination is only one part of the story. But, the sun is shining, and it’s gin o’clock!
