I call it laziness, but its close relative, procrastination, plays a major role. For both of these, I sometimes counter the tendency by turning myself into a mindless robot. I recite some iteration of “this won’t take long,” repeating as needed. Here’s a mundane example. I’m in the grocery store parking lot, ending a full day of work with a stop for something essential. There are no parking spaces. The exit lane beckons….I can surely do without that thing I need to get. Then I hear that refrain circling in my head: “this won’t take long.” Presto—I’m taking one more trip around the parking lot in the quest of crossing that annoying but doable errand off the list.
By doing this, I become a non-strategizing entity and let the inner robot rule. It obeys the basic physical laws of the universe, like Newton’s first law of motion: “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”
One more step down the road, one less step ahead. That is a fact. Mindlessness is the key; if I stop to argue with myself, it’s all over.
Another classic example is one I often heard from patrons at the recreation center where I used to work. “The hardest part about a workout is getting here.” After crossing that hurdle, they were in the flow, like Newton’s objects in motion.
I can mobilize my lazy writing self in much the same manner. Even if the output isn’t stellar, it’s still output. In fact, as I sit here at this moment, I’m doing exactly that…just getting words down on the page, for better or for worse. Lo and behold, I’m already making good headway on this post.
Another useful tool is the deadline. For professional writers, this is another basic law of the universe. Like gravity, a deadline is essential for tethering oneself to the task at hand. Think about that in a purely physical context. Imagine you are suspended in a zero-gravity space, holding a tennis racket. There is a tennis ball hanging in the air in front of you. Swing the racket, hit the ball, and then you’ll do about a thousand somersaults. That’s similar to the way a deadline acts as a force of nature. Without something to brace against, energy just spirals off in random directions.
So while I may grumble about deadlines, they are necessary, particularly when they are self-imposed. A big challenge for me when writing my first book manuscript was to create a work budget with realistic, achievable task components and deadlines for each. Without the structure of deadlines, the book would never have been finished. If the deadlines were too rigid or unrealistic, the book would never have been finished.
There is a story in the Buddhist tradition, where a lute (or sitar) player asks the Buddha for help with meditation practice. The Buddha and the musician have a conversation about the strings of the instrument. What happens when the strings are too tight? They break. What happens when they are too loose? No sound comes out. Thus it should be in meditation, the Buddha taught. There is a “sweet spot” in the meditating mind, as in music and writing, where things are not too tight and not too loose.
The writing life needs structure and momentum within a creative space. My writing self is not inherently lazy; nonetheless, laziness is sometimes a force to be dealt with. By viewing it through the lens of a physical problem, a law of nature, I can manage it without judging myself. Roll on, lazy river! The current moves slowly forward and the scenery changes eventually.
