He’s late, I’m later…nice piece on why you should procrastinate in an NYTimes piece by John Tierney.
For the past 5 years, or maybe it’s more like 10, I’ve been meaning to publish a New Year’s Day column offering a bold resolution for the coming year: “The Power of Positive Procrastination.”
Lots of gems to contemplate in lieu of doing something more odious (like filling out your timesheet), including this rigorous advice on writing from Raymond Chandler.
Chandler forced himself to write detective stories by setting aside four hours a day and following two rules:
a) You don’t have to write.
b) You can’t do anything else.
“It’s the same principle as keeping order in a school,” Chandler explained. “If you make the pupils behave, they will learn something just to keep from being bored.”
Not sure about Chandler’s take on educational psychology, but I bet his technique would work for writing.
A Few Reasonable Words 