No. 1 from a series of six things all writers can learn from Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, based on Laura Miller’s 9 March 2021 article in Slate © 2021 The Slate Group LLC
Sometimes procrastination is a way for your mind to work on solving a problem, or a way of telling you to go down a different path.
Juster wrote The Phantom Tollbooth when he was actually supposed to be writing a children’s book about cities.
He had even received a grant to write that cities book, which meant it was the most important project for him to focus on. Which he did not do.
This is a good example of the truism that, as Miller puts it, “The thing you write for fun will always be better than whatever you think is more important, serious, or expected of you.”
“The secret, at least in my life,” said Juster, “is that if you want to do something, you have to do something else to get away from that, and that’s the thing that turns out to be worthwhile.”
Posts in this series:
1. Procrastination isn’t always your enemy
3. Don’t be afraid of the big themes
4. No literary genre ever really dies
5. Procrastination IS sometimes your enemy
6. Good writing is as much about what you don’t say
Acknowledgement
In early March 2021 the writer and architect Norton Juster died at the age of 91. He was the author of the beloved fantasy adventure book The Phantom Tollboth, with illustrations by Jules Feiffer. Shortly afterwards, Laura Miller published the article ‘Six Things All Writers Can Learn from The Phantom Tollbooth’ in Slate as an appreciation of Juster. “Every time I return to the book,” wrote Miller, “I marvel at how beautifully crafted is, and not just for a kids’ book. There’s plenty that all kinds of writers can learn from Juster’s masterpiece.” I’m basing this series of posts on that article.
