Long text-drag delay Dragging text used to be instant. Now, especially after an application’s been open a few minutes, it takes forever from the time I press the mouse button on text until I can drag it. (If I try to drag it before the cursor changes form the text-insertion icon to an arrow, the text is deselected.) I’ve timed the delay a few times, and the longest one was about 35 seconds from mouse-down to cursor-change.

I started noticing this about six months ago. The only change to the system that I can think of that coincided even slightly was Yosemite. I’ve noticed it mostly in Scrivener, which is almost always where I drag text. But it also occurs in Calendar and Mail. 

Closing the app and reopening it fixes it for a minute.

I’ve tried the Terminal command to eliminate the delay, and it seems to have no effect. (defaults write -g NSDragAndDropTextDelay -int 100)  I’ve also tried the Tinderbox adjustment.

What could this be?
I had the same in Scrivener. Just don't use the 0.1 second. 0.2 and up solved my problem so far. I made the adjustments with TinkerTools
http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html