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Writer's block is a specialized case of procrastination. It is a problem of emotion management. Doubt and fear over ability cause a person to prefer avoiding th

Writer's block is a specialized case of procrastination. It is a problem of emotion management. Doubt and fear over ability cause a person to prefer avoiding the writing. "What if it's bad?" "What if I destroy this work that I so badly wanted to be beautiful?" "What if no one understands it?" "What if I over-explain it and ruin it?" "What if people understand it and hate it anyway?" You face the blank page (or blinking cursor) and these questions run through your mind. Often, rather than agonize over these questions, you do something else so that you don't face these doubts. If you're not staring at the page, or that cursor, you're not feeling what those doubts make you feel. You do things that are tangentially related to the writing, like cleaning the writing area, or fixing tea, or obsessing over the proper editing software that ought to be used to produce the work. You rationalize these things as preparation for the actual work. I've done this as programmer. I've done this as a writer. When writers do this, we call it writer's block.

smogcutter 7y ago
> You do things that are tangentially related to the writing, like cleaning the writing area, or fixing tea, or obsessing over the proper editing software that ought to be used to produce the work. You rationalize these things as preparation for the actual work. 100 times this. When you're not working it's guilt, then when you are working it's pain. So instead you fuck around trying to turn org mode into an ersatz Scrivener with vim motions.
121789 7y ago
I don't agree with your premise that procrastination is based only on doubt or fear. I certainly didn't put off ironing my clothes for 3 days because I was nervous about my ironing performance. I think it's a combination of expected pain of the actual task (ironing sucks), ambiguity on the scope of the task, and potentially fear of how your output is perceived. That's why many times, the best suggested procrastination treatments for a task are just starting the task (where predicted pain of the task disappears and you get clarity on next steps) or breaking down the subtask into very small subtasks that are digestible.
- slowmovintarget 7y ago
  It isn't based only on doubt and fear. Those happen to be predominant with writer's block, though. I might point out that ambiguity of scope may be summarized as doubt, and you do proceed to use fear as the third part of your list. But yes, procrastination in general is not only those things.

smogcutter 7y ago

> You do things that are tangentially related to the writing, like cleaning the writing area, or fixing tea, or obsessing over the proper editing software that ought to be used to produce the work. You rationalize these things as preparation for the actual work. 100 times this. When you're not working it's guilt, then when you are working it's pain. So instead you fuck around trying to turn org mode into an ersatz Scrivener with vim motions.

121789 7y ago

I don't agree with your premise that procrastination is based only on doubt or fear. I certainly didn't put off ironing my clothes for 3 days because I was nervous about my ironing performance. I think it's a combination of expected pain of the actual task (ironing sucks), ambiguity on the scope of the task, and potentially fear of how your output is perceived. That's why many times, the best suggested procrastination treatments for a task are just starting the task (where predicted pain of the task disappears and you get clarity on next steps) or breaking down the subtask into very small subtasks that are digestible.

slowmovintarget 7y ago
It isn't based only on doubt and fear. Those happen to be predominant with writer's block, though. I might point out that ambiguity of scope may be summarized as doubt, and you do proceed to use fear as the third part of your list. But yes, procrastination in general is not only those things.