Procrastination, Procrastination:Fear & Writing

Fear of Writing

Although procrastination and fear aren’t in fact the same thing, they are often inextricably linked. What presents as procrastination (various forms of cyber-slacking, hours spent playing “Slow Ride” on Guitar Hero, and, yes, cleaning the bathroom…) may often be fear. This is particularly true, I think, when it comes to writing.  For many of us, writing serves to strip the self of all its protective illusions: to write is to view our selves naked and (speaking for myself, anyway) imperfect in the cold light of the computer screen.  As the following interview reveals, even the likes of Derrida are not, it seems, free from these “moments of fear”—and, for many, the consequent paralysis or writer’s “block”—that the prospect of writing can, at times, invoke.

NP