Decades ago, at the highest levels of tournament chess, after six or more hours of exhausting play, it was time to adjourn. The master with the turn in hand wrote his move on a piece of paper, sealed it in an envelope, and handed it to the all-powerful arbiter.

The master’s seconds would spend the night working on all possible variations stemming from the sealed move. The opponent’s seconds would try to guess the move in the envelope and work out a defense or a counterattack. The two players would sleep, unless the guy who sealed the move realized he had screwed up. Then it was the sacred job of his seconds to prevent him from jumping out a window.

The next day, the arbiter would open the envelope and the master would make the move he had written down the day before. Many a game was adjourned two or three times. Chess, like the Cold War, went on forever.

None of this mishegoss happens anymore. Today, if your game goes into extra innings, there are rules to guarantee that you will finish the game on the day you started the game.

In writing, procrastination is something like adjournment. You get lost in the writing and suddenly realize you have to stop. Your boss insists you come to work, your kids insist on being fed, your partner insists that you go to therapy together. Or the clock was sucked into a time warp and it’s suddenly 2 a.m. You hit SAVE or cap your pen or throw something over the typewriter to keep the dust or the cat off.

What have you written? Have you written anything? Have you been staring? At a sheet of paper, a bird in flight, the wall in front of you?

Been there.

The only thing I don’t have in procrastination that the masters had in adjournment is my team of trusty seconds. If only Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, and F. Scott Fitzgerald could huddle around my manuscript with their felt-tip markers, drinking too much coffee while recalculating my plot and character arcs.

“Get some sleep,” Emily says to me. “You must start early—and take your dogs.”

Procrastination, in my experience, is no big deal. It’s your brain working behind the scenes, under the hood, beyond the horizon, above the clouds. Your brain needs more time. When your brain is ready, your brain will write. You’ll find a god in every golden cloister.

My revision of my novel slowed this past week as it dawned on me just how much rewriting will be involved in my revision. I am not simply re-imagining my original vision; I am writing thousands of words to create the new vision. It sounds tiring. It is tiring. It’s supposed to be.

Back to work, people!