Ten minutes is nothing. Ten minutes is a page or less. Ten minutes is the time it takes for me to think about writing and convince myself I will not be selfish if I sit down and do it, then another ten find a story I feel like working on, then another ten--at least--to figure out where I left the story, then another ten picking up the kitchen while talking to a character to see where he/she has been since I've last been there.
Do you see why I don't sit down and write for ten minutes? Because I see this chain of thought linked up every time I think about it. So, although I am writing for probably an hour every day in my head (fiction or non fiction), I rarely sit down and do anything besides jot a perfect line down on the notepad on my iphone (when revisited, these often lose their sheen). And then I always remember something from The Magical Year of Thinking, by Joan Didion: her husband, author John Dunne, chides her for talking about having an idea but not writing it down and says something along the lines of, thinking doesn't make you writer, writing does.
So far, three days in, I've written every day, but nothing big, and mostly at the end of the night, as in, "Oh shit. We haven't done our ten minutes yet." So, day one, I journaled, day two a started this blog post, and day three I'm finishing it. I guess my idea was that I would sit down to work on a story and would magically have energy and time exceeding that of my present circumstances. Although i believe in magic, there has been none of that sort in the Greedup household so far this March. It's early yet. And it is my birthday month, so I wouldn't count out a random miracle.
Speaking of miracle, this hearty plant is sprouting some new, delicate little leaves. Even though it's indoors, I'm still taking it as a sign of spring. The photo is a little blurry because it's growing too fast for my shutter, not because I don't know how to use my camera.
Do you see why I don't sit down and write for ten minutes? Because I see this chain of thought linked up every time I think about it. So, although I am writing for probably an hour every day in my head (fiction or non fiction), I rarely sit down and do anything besides jot a perfect line down on the notepad on my iphone (when revisited, these often lose their sheen). And then I always remember something from The Magical Year of Thinking, by Joan Didion: her husband, author John Dunne, chides her for talking about having an idea but not writing it down and says something along the lines of, thinking doesn't make you writer, writing does.
So far, three days in, I've written every day, but nothing big, and mostly at the end of the night, as in, "Oh shit. We haven't done our ten minutes yet." So, day one, I journaled, day two a started this blog post, and day three I'm finishing it. I guess my idea was that I would sit down to work on a story and would magically have energy and time exceeding that of my present circumstances. Although i believe in magic, there has been none of that sort in the Greedup household so far this March. It's early yet. And it is my birthday month, so I wouldn't count out a random miracle.
Speaking of miracle, this hearty plant is sprouting some new, delicate little leaves. Even though it's indoors, I'm still taking it as a sign of spring. The photo is a little blurry because it's growing too fast for my shutter, not because I don't know how to use my camera.