Once again, I’m sitting in my office, having a conversation with myself about writing this column:

"Weren’t you going to write about procrastination?"

"Yeah. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet."

"Very cute. Meanwhile, you’re on dead-line."

"But I haven’t figured out how to open the piece. You

have to grab ‘em with the first line, ya know."

"I’ve heard that."

"Maybe I should look over my other columns, see what worked and what didn’t...Let me check my files. Hey, here’s that letter from Jim back in Pittsburgh. Geez, I gotta send him a note, or an email or something---"

"You can do that later. Now, about the column..."

"Don’t worry, I’m on it. Right after the mail comes..."

"Give me a break, will ya? C’mon, we’re both sitting

down, the computer screen’s blank and waiting---"

"What do you mean, ‘we’? I’m the one who’s gotta write this thing. You get to just hang around, badgering me..."

"Somebody has to. Besides, I didn’t say a word yesterday, when you spent the morning browsing in Dutton’s Books instead of doing this column."

"You didn’t have to. The whole time I was there, the fact that I wasn’t writing hung in the air like stale tobacco smoke. I started to imagine that everybody knew. I couldn’t make eye contact with Dave Dutton. I was afraid he’d come over and say, ‘So how’s that piece on procrastination coming?’ It ruined the whole experience for me."

"Then you should’ve come back and written the damn thing."

"Brilliant. If I could’ve done that, I wouldn’t be procrastinating, would I? I’d be writing."

"Look, I’m just trying to help. In fact, I think I’m doing a helluva job."

"You’ve gotta be kidding. Based on what?"

"Based on the fact we’re half-way through this column already---"

"Again with the ‘we’ stuff. Though, now that you mention it..."

"You’re welcome. See, all we’ve done is use the same technique you often suggest to your clients. Instead of obsessing about the fact they’re procrastinating, they should write about it. As a dialogue with themselves. Or a story. Even a letter to themselves."

"That’s right. If a client writes about his feelings about procrastinating, the underlying doubts and fears may emerge, as well as the meaning he gives them. Say, for example, that he shouldn’t even be trying to write. Or that if he does, it won’t be good enough. Whatever. Hopefully, as these debilitating, self-defeating meanings are illuminated and explored, the writer can better understand his procrastination as a defense mechanism. That he procrastinates as a way to avoid discovering some imagined ‘truth’ about himself."

"Uh-huh. Remember that screenwriter client who tried the technique, writing endless pages about her procrastination issues? Ultimately, she got so bored doing it, it just became easier to write the script!"

"Well, it worked, didn’t it? For a writer struggling with procrastination, the important thing to remember is that writing anything is by definition the act of overcoming it."

"And by that you mean...?"

"I once had a client whose procrastinations were really elaborate---I mean, forget house-cleaning and file-cataloguing. This woman organized block parties in her neighborhood, kept up mailing lists for her alumni association, tried to invent a new coffee blend for her local Starbucks---"

"I get it. So?"

"So I had her write down what she was doing instead of writing...Each activity, her problems with it, her feelings about it. At some point, she began to see herself as a character doing these things, then writing about that character. Soon, this all turned into a script."

"Interesting. By the way, have you noticed we’re just about finished with this column?"

"But I was just getting started...Ironic, isn’t it?

All that time and effort procrastinating, and now that I’m writing, I don’t want to stop."

"Hmmm. Now, what have we learned from this, Grasshopper?"

"I’ll have to get back to you. Don’t forget, I’m on deadline.