Not only did she not finish her second novel (so far, anyway), she worked with Capote. There's gotta be some kind of procrasinatory link there somewhere!

You read my mind. Harper Lee seems a perfect case study, leading me to ponder the difference between procrastination and the "one-hit" wonder phenomenon.

While some writers crank out books in an ongoing, uninterrupted, frenzied biblioblitz (Joyce Carol Oates), others seem to have a much longer gestation period. This is not necessarily attributable to procrastination, however. They may have other careers that take them away from their craft. Wallace Stevens comes to mind, an insurance agent by day, poet by night, whose 13-year hiatus from publishing between Harmonium (1923) and Ideas of Order (1936) still has Helen Vendler crying when she teaches her modernism course at Harvard.

I'm not sure it is procrastination but being overwhelmed by success. The critics rave and the writer caves. Trying to top what you have done before must be hell. I think Joyce Carol Oates must have a ego of steel. Of course Oates as far as I know does not care about writing a bestseller and I don't believe Capote, Ellison or Lee did until the pressure was on.

Really sad.

I think Joyce Carol Oates must have a ego of steel.

With her background and her looks, myfranz, I don't know how she could have grown up into a woman with an excess of ego. I do think, however, that she has a steel will and a belief that she has something to say -- a belief that all successful writers must have. Having heard Oates speak a couple of times, I will say that she is a tremendously intelligent person. As for bestsellers, don't you agree that nowadays, most bestsellers are are not the best-written books out there? So I doubt Oates would ever be on a best-seller list.

As I stated, Oates would NOT care about being on a best seller list. By ego I mean a strong sense of self, not needing approval from others--at least not from those who don't know and love you personally. As far as her looks I'm not sure why that should be mentioned at all, to me she has classic and unique features as opposed to cookie-cutter looks and I LOVE a large nose on a man or a woman, however, that's another topic.