I am not a procrastinator, in general, but I do indulge in what some might call “creative prioritization.” You know: the fun stuff first, the not-so-fun stuff next, the tedious and boring bits dead last. I can euphemistically refer to this as putting the “most bang for buck” items up front or go all corporate and say I’m going for “the low-hanging fruit” first, but I’m not fooling anyone, least of all myself.
I’m just delaying the inevitable, and in editing, the inevitable includes the dreaded, stupefying, and largely useless practice of Spell-check and Grammar-check. I’d skip the whole damned process if it consistently came up with nothing, but it doesn’t.
An old friend once told me, “If you say something with enough conviction and sincerity, people will believe you.” He often put this adage into practical use. He kept a construction oversuit, a clipboard with forms, and an orange hard-hat in his trunk. With one or more of these items and a little chutzpah, he was able to go many places most of us wouldn’t try to enter. He saw the inside of the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, before it was opened to the public. He made his way onto movie location shoots. He could brass his way into a dozen places, just by sounding confident and authoritative.
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 