Pages

Translate

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Working through the book

Was able to get back to the book that I'm working through in order to make myself a better writer;
Writing Life Stories How to Make Memories in to Memoirs, Ideas into Essays, and Life into Literature
by Bill Roorbach

Exercise Four:
Make a Schedule
"I have all kinds of sympathy for busy people (new parents tops on the list!), but if you look into successful writers' lives, you'll find unbelievable burdens: full time jobs, children, multiple deadlines, car trouble, weddings and funerals, family expectations, illness, exhaustion, depression, imprisonment, on and on. Yet the work gets done."

Well, Mr. Roorbach, why don't you just look right to the heart of my problem and call me right out on it?!? (sigh)
I get it. I knew when I took this bold, mental leap that I had no time for one more thing. But all writers have their busy lives don't they? Is mine really that different? or if it is who really cares? Is my obituary going to say, "She was going to be a really great writer someday?"
Pathetic.
I am overworked and overwhelmed and I move on superspeed so often I hardly even know how to be still. It's true, if there is nothing to do at the moment I literally flop and flail because I hardly know how to decide on my own what to do. My calendar often literally dictates my life.
So....I need to make my calendar include writing.

Sometimes I've done that. Sometimes my darling husband will ask me what I'm doing on the computer. And sometimes I'm Facebooking but sometimes I've answered, "Writing" or "Working".
I am from this exercise forward going to call any writing or work for writing that I do "Working".

Mr. Roorbach says set a scheduled time to write. I set aside the time early in the morning or later in the evening when the kids are in bed to write (except right now I just finished checking the twins' take home folders, supervised Ebay's homework, started dinner, cleaned up the kitchen, checked the mail, shot off a few Blackberry emails and unloaded the dishwasher).
All that took about 25 minutes.

One a side note, I had a sick kid Sunday evening. And I will confess ..... Monday morning, the idea of calling into work, using sick time, to keep my son home from school was an intoxicating idea.I did it. I stayed home and got a massive amount of work done from my dining room table. I was able to knock out research for the upcoming mission trip and conference I am speaking at in 20 days. Never had I ever been so happy about cleaning up vomit!