The Pleasures of Procrastination

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For writers, especially ones working in deadline-based industries such as journalism, pushing due dates is as natural as breathing. Sometimes the resulting time pressure——unlocks flashes of brilliance, turning the carbon grist of my thoughts into an unlikely diamond. (More often it inspires mediocre metaphors like that one.) I’m dissatisfied with this tendency to dillydally. In my idle dreams of a perfect world, I see myself, Hillary Kelly describes procrastination as “a tic that people are desperate to dispel.” But, thankfully, she offers an antidote: Rosalind Brown’s new novel, , “a welcome gift for those who dither about their dithering.”