Jessica Abel Quotes

I don't organize myself sufficiently to get an album of material together, book the studio, and go. I need to be kicked; I need to be forced physically to go in. That's how it works for me. I'll get a great idea in the house, and it'll stay there unless somebody comes and drags it out of me!

I don't procrastinate because I love the English language and the process of storytelling, and I'm always curious to see what will come to me next. If you procrastinate a lot, you might be one who loves having written, but doesn't so much like writing.

An author who waits for the right 'mood' will soon find that 'moods' get fewer and fewer until they cease altogether.

I would never finish a painting if I didn't have a deadline.

I'm a full-time writer, which means I have the entire day to get my work done. But that can also be bad, because that means I have the entire day to get in my way.

I see procrastination and research as part of my artistic process.

Procrastination: as endemic to and dreaded by writers as writers' block.

The hardest part for me is to finish a track. I start new projects all the time.

I wrote 'Criminal' in 45 minutes when everyone else went to lunch because I had to have a hit. I can force myself to do the work, but only if someone is right up behind me.

It's a great excuse and luxury, having a job and blaming it for your inability to do your own art. When you don't have to work, you are left with the horror of facing your own lack of imagination and your own emptiness. A devastating possibility when finally time is your own.

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

A good procrastination should feel like you're inserting lots and lots of commas into the sentence of your life.

I think the lack of precision and deep focus is why it took me years to build up my work.

I'm a terrible procrastinator.

There are people who literally cannot start a project until the deadline is four hours away, even if it's a big one. And those people have a serious problem. My recommendation is set up mini-deadlines. You might say, 'Okay, here's my deadline after three days for this and there's another deadline for that and then a third deadline.'

There're so many things I want to do, like become more media savvy. I am too lazy. But I'm making an effort.

I should be writing a poem every morning but I'm not.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

Without deadlines and restrictions I just tend to become preoccupied with other things.

If I'm not at my study by 10:00, 10:30, forget it, I can't write a word.

If I waited till I felt like writing, I'd never write at all.

Just because something is three months away and seems far off, doesn't mean you will want to be there when the time comes.

I can't sit and twiddle my thumbs. I have to start writing even if it's miserable some days.

Writing, for me, is very inspiration-dependent. And inspiration can be a jerk.

Academics, who work for long periods in a self-directed fashion, may be especially prone to putting things off: surveys suggest that the vast majority of college students procrastinate, and articles in the literature of procrastination often allude to the author's own problems with finishing the piece.