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> Douglas, procrastinator that he was, was already a year past his deadline for delivering the manuscript for So Long And Thanks For All The Fish to his publish

> Douglas, procrastinator that he was, was already a year past his deadline for delivering the manuscript for So Long And Thanks For All The Fish to his publisher … and he hadn’t yet written a word. Jesus, I feel anxious just reading that.

stoneman24 2y ago
My favourite quote from Douglas Adams “ I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”
- dcminter 2y ago
  I think it's a reworked quote from someone else originally, but I like "Writing is easy - all you have to do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until your forehead bleeds..."
madaxe_again 2y ago
When you’re a professional procrastinator, you get used to the background hum of anxiety in your mind - it becomes little more relevant than a buzzing fluorescent tube over the kitchen table. An annoyance, but not something you particularly feel the need to do anything about. Generally this arises because you’ve procrastinated on so many matters that resolving any one of them simply won’t make a difference, and you know that resolving all of them is an impossibility, particularly those where the deadline has been, gone, had children, and moved to the country in its senescence to spend more time in nature.
- mckirk 2y ago
  At some point I'll write a better response here to express my gratitude for your comment. Tomorrow, maybe. Or one of these days, anyway.
- ghaff 2y ago
  I used to work with someone (back in Palm Pilot days) who would have a list of something like 100s of overdue ToDo items. He was just terrible at starting and completing tasks. And, yes, you can get to the point where the magnitude of curating and chipping away at your list is so great that it's easier to just put it out of mind.
dcminter 2y ago
He was very funny about it, but honestly I think he was probably a bit of a nightmare to work with. If he hadn't had the huge success with the Hitchhikers paperback his publishers and other collaborators would have been a lot less understanding I'm sure!
cjs_ac 2y ago
One of the books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (of however many books there are) ends very abruptly because the publisher was so annoyed with him missing deadlines they told him to just finish the page he was on and published whatever he had written so far.

stoneman24 2y ago

My favourite quote from Douglas Adams “ I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

dcminter 2y ago
I think it's a reworked quote from someone else originally, but I like "Writing is easy - all you have to do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until your forehead bleeds..."

madaxe_again 2y ago

When you’re a professional procrastinator, you get used to the background hum of anxiety in your mind - it becomes little more relevant than a buzzing fluorescent tube over the kitchen table. An annoyance, but not something you particularly feel the need to do anything about. Generally this arises because you’ve procrastinated on so many matters that resolving any one of them simply won’t make a difference, and you know that resolving all of them is an impossibility, particularly those where the deadline has been, gone, had children, and moved to the country in its senescence to spend more time in nature.

mckirk 2y ago
At some point I'll write a better response here to express my gratitude for your comment. Tomorrow, maybe. Or one of these days, anyway.
ghaff 2y ago
I used to work with someone (back in Palm Pilot days) who would have a list of something like 100s of overdue ToDo items. He was just terrible at starting and completing tasks. And, yes, you can get to the point where the magnitude of curating and chipping away at your list is so great that it's easier to just put it out of mind.

dcminter 2y ago

He was very funny about it, but honestly I think he was probably a bit of a nightmare to work with. If he hadn't had the huge success with the Hitchhikers paperback his publishers and other collaborators would have been a lot less understanding I'm sure!

cjs_ac 2y ago

One of the books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (of however many books there are) ends very abruptly because the publisher was so annoyed with him missing deadlines they told him to just finish the page he was on and published whatever he had written so far.