--- title: "On the Yak Shaving Habits of a Writer" date: 2016-08-31T12:00:00-07:00 url: https://blog.lmorchard.com/2016/08/31/yak-shaving-habits/ author: Les Orchard tags: [writing, procrastination, insanity, yaks] --- # On the Yak Shaving Habits of a Writer **TL;DR**: Writing is apparently so important to me that I procrastinate like crazy rather than risk failing at it.

In composing this, I fully recognize the danger of disappearing up my own backside. The thing is, I want to write more. And, it was pretty cool I managed to get something posted last night. But, the process of doing so ended up way more convoluted than it should have been. So, I want to share the story and invite public ridicule.

So I told myself that I should do some writing tonight, but now that it's tonight all I want to do is drink booze and play video games.
— Les Orchard (@lmorchard) August 30, 2016

It started with yesterday morning's journal pages. I told myself it was a good night to get this done. I made plans to start working on it after dinner. I cooked dinner. I ate dinner and had a beer. I sat down on the couch... and all I wanted to do was anything else but write. ## Recursive yak shaving Let's see, what did I do instead? I'd mused in my journal that I needed a different venue to get myself into the ritual mindset to write. I write my daily pages at the kitchen island over breakfast. That's a way easier environment for focusing on that task than my workaday desk with my laptop and all that entails. So, that means I went to the kitchen island with notebook & pen and started writing, right? Nope. I went to the basement to dig out an old laptop. I wanted something to write a blog post with fewer distractions. I dug up a ChromeBook, a MacBook, and an Android tablet with a keyboard. Surely one of those things would be handy for writing! (Why I didn't also dig up [my old 80x24 DOS palmtop from 1993](http://www.tankraider.com/DOSPALMTOP/prolinearps1000.html), I'm not sure. That thing's nifty and I used to write with it back in college!)

So, that means I went to the kitchen island with notebook & pen and started writing, right? Nope.

On the way out of the basement, I noticed the unassembled comic book boxes I'd been meaning to put together. So, I put them together. I considered reorganizing some comics from their 20+ year old boxes into the new ones. But, no, I decided: That was too far off task. I'll get to that later. Continuing on, I considered my Tempest arcade machine. The screen's still not working on that thing, and I've been meaning to fix it most of the last year. I moved to pop open the back, but stopped. Again, too far off task! I made it upstairs with the laptops and the tablet. I got to the kitchen and plugged things in to charge. The tablet wouldn't get past the boot-up screen. Okay, forget the tablet. The MacBook booted into... Ubuntu Linux? I forgot I did that with this machine. I forgot my password. Wi-fi didn't work. Deal with that later. The ChromeBook booted up fine. But, for some reason, I suddenly decided it needed to have [Crouton][] and Ubuntu installed. You know, so I could run git & node & gulp to preview my blog post and publish when I was done. So, I started on that. [Crouton][]'s nifty and it was up & running with less fuss than I expected. I got all my tools installed, and had my blog building before I knew it. Then, around 10pm, I moved back to the couch and my Windows PC. I opened up a text editor, a shell running my blog, and a browser for previews - all of which, mind you, I've had set up and working fine on that Windows machine for the past year at least. I put on headphones and started [Killing Joke][] on Spotify. I assembled photos and drafted the blog post for GameChord. Finally, around 3am, I published it. Then, I went to bed.

Finally wrote about GameChord, the little 1-handed keypad I made this summer https://t.co/fUCv6o5M6l
— Les Orchard (@lmorchard) August 31, 2016

[killing joke]: https://open.spotify.com/album/16MILExMR5RIvzTIII2YnH So, umm, yeah. Did you notice that I never used the tablet, the MacBook, or the ChromeBook at any point? The comic books didn't come in handy, either. ## Building high pedestals

Recently, [I built worktables out of 2x4s and plywood][worktables]. It was my first time really working with wood since shop class in High School. But, I did it: Found plans. Found a lumberyard. Got lumber & tools. Picked a weekend and got super sweaty in the garage making lots of mistakes with wood. I produced a pair of crude but solid worktables. [worktables]: https://www.flickr.com/photos/deusx/28511732042/in/datetaken-public/ Building GameChord was similar: I started researching & tinkering until I had something working. I even managed to get myself out of the house to talk to actual people and join up as a member at [i3Detroit][]. No small measure of social terror involved, there. It took me a few months, but I managed to move the project along to completion. But, somehow, the notion of writing drives me to insane [yak shaving][] diversions in the basement. This morning, back at the kitchen island, I had a post-mortem over coffee. What I managed to wring out of myself is that I've stuck writing up on a scary high pedestal. If I don't make another table or keyboard, that's cool: I've never considered myself **A Woodworker** or **A Keyboard Maker**. Those things aren't as crucial to my self-image, I guess. For as long as I can remember, though, I've wanted to be **A Writer**. The trouble is that actually engaging in the process of writing means I might discover that, you know, I might be **Not A Writer**. ## How to get past this? The funny thing is that I *have* written a bunch. I really like words. I've been told I'm good at it. [A book publisher even paid me for it, more than once!](http://amzn.to/2bW4moK) I also know I produce some terrible stuff. But, writers I admire have admitted the same. The key is to just keep writing and get better. Clean up the junk in editing. What to do, then, to stop all the procrastination & avoidance? The best answer I have is nothing clever: Write more. No lifehacks. Just get over myself and write more. Be a writer by writing and let the failure wash over me. Then write some more - maybe even write about feeling like a failure. Write embarassing things and invite ridicule. Disappear up my own backside and turn inside out. (Wait, that last one sounds unpleasant. I should edit that out.) Anyway, I guess I don't really have a conclusion. Do you, dear reader, have any better advice? I'd like to hear it. [i3Detroit]: https://i3detroit.org/ [Crouton]: https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton [yak shaving]: http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/Y/yak-shaving.html