Well, I realized yesterday why I will never completely overcome procrastination: It Works. Drat it. I really do seem to work best at the very last moment, frazzled, self-loathing, and panicked. It's like the Time Management seminar leader said: procrastination can be a very, very productive method of working for some people. It's just that it's a very stressful and unpleasant method, so it would be nice to shift to something less traumatic.

Guess what? Both papers were a hit. I felt great. I got great comments, laughter at the right points, and lots of applause at the end. It was really, really fun. Woohoo! I'm now actually thinking about applying for my First Real Academic Job (at least as a practice experience--How To Apply For Real Jobs), and am feeling much more confident about it than I would have, just a week ago. In-between-times, I often forget just how much fun conferences really are....

But in the meantime, I'm so relieved to have time and energy again for fiction writing! That just Did Not Happen in the last few days, because everything in my mind and life was Paper Oriented. This morning, for the first time since Tuesday, Patrick and I headed out for our normal pre-work coffeeshop/writing hour. I felt incredibly stymied for about 20 minutes, and then wrote two and a half pages in a mad rush. Things are flowing again. And since I got two really good writing emails in the past couple of days...well, hey. I'm feeling good right now. It even pretty much balances out all the lack of sleep, panic and misery of Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday night.

Now if this can just inspire me to a humonguous burst of productivity.....