Serenity… refocus – seek joy – thrive

My little experiment of writing something every-single-day, even if it’s complete nonsense, is working out nicely. Granted, it’s only been 15 days but already I can see the effects. Not so much in my writing as in my willingness to actually sit down at the keyboard, write something and click “publish”. I have a before midnight deadline in order for the little red box to show up on my calendar and sometimes I leave it til the very last minute, down to the wire, but it gets done. And I’ve proven to myself that I can do it.

However! I could go on with just “off the top of my head” natter, and there is really nothing wrong with that, it’s all good – except that as long as the red outline on the calendar is there, I feel free to put off finishing my half-formed thoughts, half written articles, that I have in my draft folder. Hmmm.

So, for the next 15 days I want to make myself a new promise. I will finish at least two of those a week. Editing and rewriting as needed even after publication.  I have a “first draft” category and also an “edited to add” one so that, as long as the edits don’t affect the core of the piece, and are not related to other people or sites, so on, I won’t show what I’ve edited out or added in, just in the tags showing that it’s different from the original. Or something like that.

Another effect of this experiment is that it’s helped me figure out how to carve out time and mindspace to do what I need to do.  I have no *more* time than I had before, it’s just that I’ve finally accepted that I have to work within certain parameters, not of my choosing, and that if I don’t want my dreams to completely atrophy then I needed to do something. I’m not completely there yet, figuring out and energy wise – but on my way. With, also, more confidence.

I’ve also stopped berating myself for being easily distracted. I used to wonder why I could barely plot out one sentence during or after a really busy day when there were all these people who’d say they were typing entire articles while sitting in a noisy Starbucks, or on a train, or in the airport, and all that. If they can do it, in the midst of what was sometimes lots of noise and confusion, why can’t I? I’d wonder.

I finally realized that the difference between those people and me was that, for the most part, the surrounding noise was not for them.

It’s in the background and they can afford to tune it out – no one is asking them for something to drink or to arbitrate a disagreement between shrieking children, or to wipe their butts, or to make breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks or … well, lots of things. There is just no way I can compare my ability to tune out the noise and theirs. In that scenario, I am not the intrepid writer, sitting in the busy shop sipping coffee while pounding out a novel or crafting gems of political insight.  I am the barrista. All the noise and demands that surround me are for me, and thus cannot be ignored.

So anyway, I find that the more I free myself from the guilt of not writing or not having time for this or that, the more free I feel to write, to pursue things I need to do and, more importantly to figure out what suits me best, and what interests me most.

So, we’ll see what the next 15 days brings.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 8:57 am and is filed under grandma blogging, promises, writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.