Think you have a procrastination problem?
By: Tom Johnson
Tags: Writing Tips, Self Improvement, Writing, Advice, Procrastination

Think you have a procrastination problem?

Behold six famous writers who procrastinated worse than you

Photo courtesy of Michael Vrba on Unsplash

When it comes to procrastination, I am a member of an elite class. In fact, I’m writing this piece to avoid working on a larger, more heartfelt story detailing my own struggles with procrastination.

If you’re a writer, you likely struggle with procrastination, too. Like me, you probably look for ways to avoid doing the work in front of you, which is how you stumbled upon this piece.

So rather than checking your Medium stats for the thousandth time, or organizing your desktop, or doing whatever it is you do to avoid writing, take a moment to behold six writers who probably procrastinated even worse than you.

Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams’ ability to avoid writing was considered legendary. “I love deadlines,” he once said. “I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.”

Despite completing nine books before his death, Adams is said to have hated the writing process. He would spend entire days in bed or in the bath to avoid writing.

Rather than addressing his problems with procrastination head-on, Adams would order his publishers and editors to incarcerate him and scowl at him until he met his writing obligations.

When struggling to finish So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, Adams’ editor reportedly locked him in a hotel room to ensure that Adams had nothing to distract him from finishing his work. During those three weeks, the editor had food and drink delivered to Adams to prevent him from leaving the room.

According to his friend Steve Meretzky, Adams “raised procrastination to an art form. Hitchhikers Guide would never have gotten done if I hadn’t gone over to England and virtually camped out on his doorstep.”

Adams reportedly wanted his gravestone to read, “He finally met his deadline.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Eighteenth century poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was among the most infamous procrastinators of all time. Throughout his writing career, publishers would publicly promote imminent pieces from Coleridge that ultimately failed to appear. Scholars studying the literary works of Coleridge find that he left behind a trail of fragments and incomplete projects. While often brilliant, most were doomed to obscurity.

Coleridge is best known for writing The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan. But Coleridge never actually finished Kubla Khan. He contends that it was based on an opium-inspired dream that was interrupted because a “ Person from Porlock” came along.

Coleridge himself described his procrastination as “a deep and wide disease in my moral Nature . . . Love of Liberty, Pleasure of Spontaneity, these all express, not explain, the fact.”

As Molly Lefebure described him in her book, A Bondage of Opium, “his existence became a never-ending squalor of procrastination, excuses, lies, debts, degradation, failure.”

Margaret Atwood

The author of The Handmaid’s Tale describes herself as a “world-class procrastinator.” Atwood says her daily routine consists of puttering around and stressing throughout the morning until mounting anxiety finally drives her to begin writing around three in the afternoon.

“I procrastinated for about three years about starting The Handmaid’s Tale,” Atwood once said. “I tried to write a more normal novel instead because I thought it was just too batty.”

Despite her struggles with procrastination, Atwood still manages to get her work done. During her five-decade career, she has written 14 novels, 9 short story collections, 16 volumes of poetry, 8 children’s books and 10 full-length non-fiction works.

Truman Capote

“I am a completely horizontal author,” Capote said in an interview with The Paris Review. “I can’t think unless I’m lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I’ve got to be puffing and sipping. As the afternoon wears on, I shift from coffee to mint tea to sherry to martinis.”

Capote, who wrote In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, said he avoided writing with a typewriter.

“Not in the beginning. I write my first version in longhand (pencil). Then I do a complete revision, also in longhand. Essentially I think of myself as a stylist, and stylists can become notoriously obsessed with the placing of a comma, the weight of a semicolon. Obsessions of this sort, and the time I take over them, irritate me beyond endurance.”

Victor Hugo

The French poet and novelist, whose works included the epic novels Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, struggled mightily with procrastination. In acknowledgment of his weakness, Hugo employed a unique tactic to keep himself on task: he had his servant strip him naked in his study, take away his clothes, and then leave him alone until a predetermined time.

Confining himself to the study without clothing was Hugo’s valiant effort to avoid the temptation to go outside. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, Hugo found the wherewithal to complete his work.

Herman Melville

Melville began writing Moby Dick in February 1850 and finished 18 months later— a full year later than he had planned. The American Romantic author reportedly had his wife chain him to his desk while he was struggling to finish the epic novel. It was worth the inconvenience. The book is revered as one of the greatest American novels. William Faulkner said he wished he had written the book himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it “one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world” and “the greatest book of the sea ever written.” The book’s opening line, “Call me Ishmael,” is considered among the best ever written.