E.B. White Doesn’t Procrastinate, He Delays

April 04, 2014

Good news for procrastinators: E.B. White was one of us. Although White, one of the greatest writers and social observers of all time, didn’t call it procrastination. He called it “delay,” which sounds much more civilized.

In 1969, George Plimpton and Frank Crowther interviewed White for the Paris Review. (The magazine’s collection of interviews with writers is one of the internet’s greatest treasures, as far as I’m concerned).

During the discussion, E.B. White gives the most eloquent description of procrastination I’ve ever heard:

Delay is natural to a writer. He is like a surfer—he bides his time, waits for the perfect wave on which to ride in. Delay is instinctive with him. He waits for the surge (of emotion? of strength? of courage?) that will carry him along. I have no warm-up exercises, other than to take an occasional drink. I am apt to let something simmer for a while in my mind before trying to put it into words. I walk around, straightening pictures on the wall, rugs on the floor—as though not until everything in the world was lined up and perfectly true could anybody reasonably expect me to set a word down on paper.

Thank you, E.B. White, for making procrastination sound downright glamorous. I will think of you next time I’m OD’ing on Barefoot Contessa episodes waiting for my next perfect wave of inspiration.

– Tory Hoen