When last we checked in on my progress, I hadn’t actually posted about my progress in writing Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy.

So here’s your first real progress report.

If we posit a length of about 30,000 words—not a very long book—then I’m more than halfway there, having scribbled about 19,000 words.

The structure of the book is as follows:

1. Introduction to Lichtenbergianism
2. Framework
3. Precept 1: Task Avoidance
4. Precept 2: Abortive Attempts
5. Precept 3: Successive Approximation
6. Precept 4: Waste Books
7. Precept 5: Ritual
8. Precept 6: Steal from the Best
9. Precept 7: Gestalt
10. Precept 8: Audience
11. Precept 9: Abandonment
12. The 10th Precept
13. Conclusion
14. Appendices
    1. The Lyles Scale of Compositional Agony
    2. The Arts Speech
    3. The Invocation
    4. SUN TRUE FIRE

Also, I have begun and have almost finished an actual book proposal to start submitting to publishers, although first I’m going to run it by a friend who’s an editor with one of them fancy New York publishing houses to prevent self-embarrassmentation.

Having said that, though, I have to say that when I started looking at what I’ve written so far in terms of submitting sample chapters, a lot of it is still misshapen and raw.  Like the chapter on STEAL FROM THE BEST, what is that even about, Kenneth?  I’m thinking that I’ve passed that first gush of creativity and am now starting to hack my way into the real part of writing, i.e., psychic pain.  Physical pain.  Will the Lyles Scale of Compositional Agony apply to writing?  Stay tuned.