Be Unproductive: Taking a Hard Corner After Burnout

A hallmark of being in your twenties is driving a series of unreliable, questionable vehicles. A friend of mine had one car in particular that was little more than a street-legal golf cart. It was held together by equal parts luck and necessity. Her muffler fell off on the freeway, her windows would periodically drop …

Wave Hello to my Inner Impostor

If you're anything like me (and I'm going to generalize and say you're exactly like me), you've probably struggled with impostor syndrome. It's this great feeling that others overestimate your ability and all of your accomplishments are unearned, even accidental. Three days ago in an interview with The Sunday Times, David Tennant, who has starred …

An Open Letter to the Impostor in Me

I’m staring at a blank page and it’s staring back. The black cursor is blinking. Binary signals switching on and off like the waving of a traffic cop. Proceed. Move Forward. Do something. But the cursor doesn’t move and the blank page is open, oppressive in its potential. I should be writing. I should be …

The Unlikely Relationship Between Perfectionism and Procrastination

If I ignore a work in progress too long, I start to catch myself avoiding it completely. Perhaps the best strategy I've used to fight this is self-imposing deadlines. Of course, as the deadline looms, I conveniently push off each short story until the week of. I know procrastinating is self sabotage. I know my …