What Shall I Write?

I promised to write something for the blog and here it is nearly class time again and I haven’t done it. I feel guilty and a slow panic is creeping in around my damp temples. What do I write before facing the group this Sunday? Maybe I’ll write about procrastination. My trusty Thesaurus offers plenty of synonyms: delay, put off doing something, postpone action, defer action, be dilatory, use delaying tactics, stall, temporize, drag one's feet/heels, take one's time, play for time, play a waiting game.

It also wisely suggest that fear of failure often causes people to procrastinate. This time, I didn’t think I feared failing, I just could’t come up with a juicy interesting topic. I think it was Oscar Wilde who said, (and I paraphrase): “The worse sin in writing is to bore your readers.”

Maybe I should pretend I am in a writing workshop and have 25 minutes to write an original piece. In the past, that has helped me come up with a half decent chunk which I can extend and polish later. Hmmm. Okay, back to the word: procrastination. Let’s break it apart. The first meaning listed for pro is to favour something. However, I don’t know the meaning for crastination to know whether I favour it or not, and not being fluent in Latin or Greek I know not its roots. Does anybody out there know what crastinate means? Pro also means professional. I don’t think I’m a profession procrastinator, although my sister might think so. How many times can I put off tidying up that heap of papers on my desk, and what about that tower of books by my bedside. I really am reading them, but why is it that I keep adding to the pile faster than I can finish one of them? Okay, maybe I am a procrasinator. I really am curious, however, to know the meaning of crastinate - whoops nearly typed castrate. Okay - maybe there is a connection. Using its figurate meaning of derpriving one of power, vitality, or vigor, I agree that procrastination can indeed do that to one.

On that note, I believe I will finish before I use anymore delaying tactics, except to say that when I was looking for the Oscar Wilde quote I came up with the following two that I think my writing comrades will appreciate.

Happy writing . . . and reading.

P.S. Just found from Wordnik: "fr. L. crastinum - tomorrow” And you know that they say about tomorrow!

“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.” Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

“The good ended happily,and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.” Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest