On Procrastination

By Geoff Watkinson

In 1997, Charlie Rose asked David Foster Wallace, who had just received a MacArthur Foundation fellowship grant, how Wallace would spend his year off. “If past experience holds true,” Wallace responded, “I will probably write an hour a day and spend eight hours a day biting my knuckle and worrying about not writing.” I identify with this creative anxiety—of the invading despair of a whole day turning into a seemingly unproductive haze, a procrastination stupor. I forget...