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THE WOLVES IN THE WALLS!
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"You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land.
There is no other land; there is no life but this one."
- Henry David Thoreau
"The cost of a thing is the amount of life required to be exchanged for it immediately or in the long run."
- Henry David Thoreau
Time resides in the strange realm of grim mathematics:
where he who works adds, and he who retires subtracts.
The question for this month is:
How do you find the time to write?
Mark Twain warned us that each day is a coin: we can spend it any way we wish BUT we can only spend it once.
The ledger that shows us how many coins are left to us is hidden beyond our sight. We may have many coins of days or only a precious few.
Thoreau would ask us what we purchased with the irreplaceable coin of yesterday.
Our desperate dream to be a writer seduces us to spend those rare coins in a pursuit of a goal that many pursue but few reach.
HOW TO SQUEEZE THE MOST PENNIES OUT OF EACH DAY'S COIN?
What did Lewis Carroll write:
"Oh, if I had but the time, and you had but the brain!"
1.) MAKE WRITING A HABIT SET TO A DEFINITE TIME
Discover the part of the day where you can squeeze in a few minutes and NO MATTER IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO WRITE, write!
Promise yourself to write at least two sentences. By the time you get to the end of the second, the third sentence will occur to you.
The water only comes on if you turn on the faucet.
2.) MARK YOUR TERRITORY
Pick a spot where you feel comfortable and safe from interruption. Write there.
The very sight of the surroundings will shift your mental gears into the writing mode after a month.
Every ship has its own berth, so should your writing mind.
3.) THE CROW-BAR APPROACH
Fifteen minutes of writing squeezed in three times a day come what may will get your book done faster than 30 minutes every Saturday.
Passing by the place where you write? Pick up a pencil and jot down the first thing that occurs to you. When you sit down again, reading that phrase will bring back more than you think.
4.) BLOOM WHERE YOU'RE PLANTED
I know what I said about your own writing place. But do not sacrifice a great idea or a splash of time obeying routine.
Get a great idea as you are drifting off? Get out of bed, write a short paragraph, and you will sleep more relaxed.
Waiting in the doctor's office, standing in line at Wal-Mart, taking a shower ...
these minutes add up. Make them count for something.
Carry a small notebook and jot down those bits of dialogue or plot twists or descriptions of how a person moves or speaks.
5.) BE YOUR MOTHER-IN-LAW
Be Ruthless.
Don't let yourself off the hook. So you want to write a book? Well, stop talking and start doing.
Ever have a maddening itch you couldn't get to? You found a way, didn't you?
If you want something bad enough, you find a way.
Facebook calling you with cute kitten videos? Ignore it and them, ignore the urge to check in on your friends, and WRITE ... or stop calling yourself a writer.
6.) BE A MULE
Look at all the famous writers. It was not their talent. It was their sheer stubbornness that drove them to keep writing until things turned around for them.
Set a writing goal and stick to it. Didn't write the number of words you wanted? In the attempt, you wrote more than if you had given up.
7.) ENTER THE TIME OF STRANGER THINGS
Emails and cell phones do not exist once you sit in YOUR WRITING SPACE. Break your email and cell phone addiction.
And many are addicted to them both. Dare to go HOURS without either.
Have we gotten so terrified of being alone with our thoughts that solitude is threatening somehow?
Use an hourglass or a kitchen timer to go A WHOLE HOUR without checking your email or touching your cell phone and WRITE!
Our concentration and attention span have become fragmented by our obsession with social cyber communication.
Without time for contemplation and reflection our creativity resources have become shallow and dried up.
Write any at all on a day when you didn't think you couldn't a sentence? Reward yourself in some small, meaningful way.
Promise yourself that lusted-for second cup of coffee when you finish one more page.
Hey, those gold stars worked in Kindergarten. :-)
A WORD OF CAUTION
Yes, we want to prosper in writing, but please do not overlook the loved ones or hurting ones in your life to follow the Will O' Wisp of Success.
Remember the words of
Charles Dickens:
"No space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused."
Just because I wanted to:
Just because I wanted to:
"Without time for contemplation and reflection our creativity resources have become shallow and dried up." This is so true.
ReplyDeleteI have never been a disciplined writer who sits down and writes every day. I have huge spurts of prolificness followed by long periods where I don't write anything at all. I used to feel guilty about that, as if that somehow made me not a writer, but I don't any more. It's how I work and it works for me. :)
If it works for you -- that is all that is important!!
DeleteHi Roland ... I certainly get off the band wagon and look at other projects ... a wandering mind - does not help. But I'm getting more disciplined ...
ReplyDeleteReally good points you've given us here - thank you ... time waits for no man or woman ... we need to relish and enjoy every second of our day ... cheers Hilary
So many beautiful people and things we take for granted that are only ours for such a short time. May your days be filled with fun and new wonders, Roland
DeleteI find time in the evening to speculate and consider various things, whether to do with life, writing or just wonder. I'm trying to find that perfect time to write. . . My free time has been constrained by life, but that happens to us all. I'll do it, I'll try to write a few sentences today, just to get new ideas rolling. . .
ReplyDeleteOut of the 48 weekend hours, I worked 24! I know how hard it can be to find time to write!! :-)
DeleteI'll pray that life eases up on you and gives you a safe harbor of re-fitting so to speak.
I'm going to try all of the above and see what happens by the end of the year. I think the crowbar might be where I'll begin and work my way through to being a mule.
ReplyDeleteSandra tells me the crowbar to the head would work for me! The "Mule part" she says I come by naturally!! :-)
DeleteLook to your eamils, the details of my DON'T BUY MY BOOK! Blog Tour is coming your way.
Hi Roland. I'm a bit like Bish...feast or famine. I'd love to have nothing to do but write, but hey, that'll never happen. I write when I can and refuse to feel guilty if I don't write every day. Hey, those long text messages must count??? Great advice all the same. :-)
ReplyDeleteThe part of the mind that controls our writing I believe is like a muscle -- it grows the more we use it.
DeleteBut having worked 24 of the last 48 hours, I know all about doing what you can and to be content!! :-)
Finding time to write is such a challenge! I spent much of the summer not doing much writing so I could focus my energy on marketing but the thing about marketing is that it never ends. And now I wonder if I will ever write again!
ReplyDeleteI know the feeling! When I begin a new book, I feel so burdened, knowing that when I finish, I will have the chore of marketing it to a world that has never heard of me.
DeleteMaybe I should date Taylor Swift? No, there are just some prices too steep to pay!! :-)
Haha!
DeleteGreat tips, Roland. When I went forward with my plan to write fiction full-time, I told my banker I was buying time.
ReplyDeleteHe replied that I was only renting it.
No doubt! Each day slips through our fingers into the past from whence none can touch it. We can only hope to make best use of each one that we can. Best of luck with your wager for success!
DeleteHi, Roland,
ReplyDeleteWonderful tips here. I may need ALL OF THEM! So true, so true. Forcing yourself sometimes is the only way. I need to do that myself.
It's time to finish the novella I had started two years ago. TIME certainly does get away from as like a speeding bullet.
You have had a hard go of it, my friend. Be kind to yourself -- but put a few words down a day! :-)
DeleteI like all your points, especially the Marking your Territory and the Crowbar. I've noticed that if I sit in my regular writing place without writing, I feel edgy. I need to be writing. And sometimes you just have to force writing into your schedule.
ReplyDeleteIWSG September
I'm glad your little one was not in the car with your latest car accident. Hope you sell even more books!
DeleteGreat quotes. Good advice. I especially like, "bloom where you're planted." This was a fun post to read!
ReplyDeleteI have to bloom where I am planted lest I be thought a weed! I tried to follow your blog but Blogger wouldn't let me. Rats!
DeleteVery sound advice. Thank you. :-)
ReplyDeleteAnna from elements of emaginette
No, thank you very much! :-)
Delete"BUT we can only spend it once." I love that!
ReplyDeleteI have to try harder to set aside my other obligations every day for at least 15 minutes to write. Some days, I have time to write and others I simply don't.
Excellent advice and motivation!
I have my Apache, Elu, tell his blood-brother to beware promises because they usually cost more than it appears -- same way with obligations. I try to make few so that I can keep them! :-)
DeleteHi Roland
ReplyDeleteWell done. You gave so many points and a lot to think about. One more thing I would add. Keep the joy in writing. Sometimes, especially in the middle of revisions, our joy can be lost.
Nancy
Yes! What's the point in writing if we make ourselves miserable?
DeleteThis post is so full of good advice and tips. I need to carry notecards with me. I did that when I was writing my play. I'd hear a good snip it of dialogue and write it down. Thanks for visiting my blog today!
ReplyDeleteI was happy to visit your blog today, Mary. You had a great post.
DeleteGreat advice, Roland. I love that Mark Twain and his advice, too. Spending our time the way we want is important, but we need to make it count.
ReplyDeleteLike every blow in a boxing match: make each one count, right?
DeleteThese are great tips and very creatively expressed. Nicely done.
ReplyDeleteArlee Bird
Tossing It Out
Thanks so much, Arlee!
DeleteI love this post, Roland!
ReplyDelete"Passing by the place where you write? Pick up a pencil and jot down the first thing that occurs to you." This is new to me. I think it's worth a try out.
Mule? I can do that!!
"Promise yourself that lusted-for second cup of coffee when you finish one more page." I already drink WAY TOO MUCH. Can't resist the stuff, even though I've been promising myself to cut back...
Thank you for visiting my blog.
The ghost of Freud suggested that idea about jotting the first thing that pops into your mind idea. :-)
DeleteThe mule trick comes naturally to me, too! LOL.
You wrote a great post, too.
I push myself when the passion is there. of course, if I spent more time on the blogs I'd find more projects to be passionate about, lol. Vicious cycle!!
ReplyDeleteI don't know. One anthology project I found on the web has nearly convinced me to give up writing entirely!
Delete