seat of my pants

Daphne, the Publication Coach, is a great advocate of getting in early. Whether it’s a school essay, doctoral thesis or journal article deadline, her credo is start writing the moment you know the topic, don’t use an outline and don’t edit as you write. I’m with Daphne one hundred per cent.

She begins with a mind map, a blank page, on which everything she might possibly write about the theme is randomly bunged down on the page, no order, no organisation. That comes later. Apposite things can be joined with arrows or dots or circles or whatever as their apposition emerges.

Now write, and write early.

The idea is to finish this sucker with days to spare so you can put it aside, appraise it in the clear light of at least 24 hours not thinking about it or looking at it. Now comes the polish.

While I’m with Daphne one hundred per cent on all the above—great theory—my actual modus operandi is diametrically different. I procrastinate and then procrastinate some more. It’s always been that way. I don’t want it to be, but it is. It’s like I’m addicted to not doing.

I don’t remember school essays but I must have left them till the last moment. Tertiary deadlines I avoid by doing almost entirely practical subjects, physical education and drama. I’m sure I learn lines for the plays I act in at teachers college on an ‘it’ll-be-all-right-on-the-night’ basis. I never fluff one.

My practicum report for my graduate diploma at the age of 46—the whole diploma hinges on this—is written in scraps but the final work is only complete at 5:15 on the morning of submission after 12 hours unbroken writing and editing.

Here I am at 61 with five days to spread 100 PowerPoint slides across my desk, sort them, revamp them, edit the notes, slot them into nice clear plastic folders, so that when I stand up tomorrow to present the stuff to 65 pre-service teachers in Bendigo, I know my stuff backwards. I have just wasted five days.

Right now it’s between four and five in the morning. I’m writing today’s blog post. How good is this? Well, yes, but I got out of bed at four to start the work described in the previous paragraph. This post is my procrastination about the main event. It has been ever thus. I fly by the seat of my pants.

I love sport because the contest is unscripted drama. Presenting to an audience for me is always the same: unscripted, unpolished, seat-of-the-pants drama.

Rock on.