I Wish This Was The Last Time I Had To Do This

The first part is the longest. Incubation. Put it out of your mind. Do anything else. Go for a walk, do some shopping, read a book; anything that you can convince myself is vaguely constructive. Ignore it. It'll still be there when you get around to it. You can get started after dinner.

Hand-wringing: step two. Sit in front of the computer. Commit to getting started. You still have tons of time left. In fact, you have enough time to check your e-mail. And, ooh, don't you want a sandwich while you're doing that? I heard about this great place over on Sheridan that makes this salmon banh mi...

Step three. Okay, this is the point where you just get disgusted with yourself. Because, really? You can't do better than this? Isn't this the hundredth-plus time you've been stuck staring at an empty computer screen? You need to change your approach. Your whole last-minute ethos is clearly not working. Best case, you stumble in tomorrow morning sick from your two hours and fifteen minutes of sleep, toting some sub-literate agglomeration of unrelated thoughts. Next time, you start a week in advance. This time next Sunday you'll be kicking back and enjoying yourself, laughing about how trivially easy it is to get the work done when you spread it evenly throughout the week.

Step four: panic, panic, panic, panic, panic! I mean, what the hell, right? Fuck! Fuck. Okay. Okay. So it took you an hour to get a tenth of the way through it. It's cool. Relax. No, you are not sleepy. Do not do this to me, god damn it. Make some coffee! But real quick-like. Okay, just, um, just try to think real hard. Just try to fill the page with as many words as you can and edit down from there. ...well, okay, good hustle, but it's better if the words are related to the subject at hand. Coffee's ready, go! Go! Yeah! That's good, isn't it? This'll help you think. It's gonna be fine. Just bang it out and it'll be fine. Wonder what's new on Twitter?

Step five: unplug your modem.

What? Oh yeah, step six. Um, okay, this is the part where you just

Step seven: Pray to the God of the Israelites for the strength to finish this without passing out. Trust me, New Testament YHWH doesn't have enough juice to fix this mess. Look, you will never pull this shit again, got it? The walls are buzzing and you're mouth's dry from all the coffee. Maybe you should just call it a day. If you just take a two-hour nap now, you'll wake up all refreshed and full of ideas. Well, if don't just sleep straight through 'til 9am tomorrow. Hm. Maybe nix that nap.

Step Eight. Enlightenment. Clouds open, muse sings, fingers never leave keyboard.

Yes! Yes. Home stretch. You did it, slugger! Okay, think of a punchy way to end it. Waitwaitwait! I got it! How about, "Step nine: get some sleep already."