I read it over and over again. 15 minutes a day. Write at least 15 minutes a day. To the extent that I half roll my eyes when I read it now. I know, I know. Okay? It’s not my fault that I had to . . . [insert whatever I am busy with that day]. Then there is the plaguing thought that maybe I’m not a real writer. Maybe I don’t care as much as I should. Maybe I am just a failure all around. Maybe if I truly cared enough I would make the time. That’s what everyone says. If you really care about something you make the time for it. But I do care about it, I know that in my heart. I just – shy away from it sometimes. I consider it extraneous and feel like I am neglecting other duties when I spend too much time on it. I am trying to refocus that – yes, again. This will be a constant subject, I’m telling you!
So, anyway – yesterday I went to the Library of Congress. ALL DAY. It was epic. I had a day off because I put in so many work hours last week, and decided to take advantage of my living situation and go do research for my book. I was thinking that I would spend a few hours there at the most. Nope. I spent over an hour in the geography and maps room, looking over maps of the Oregon trail from the 1800s, about as long in the newspaper room looking at newspapers from the 1800s to get a good idea of what the general news/headlines were back then, and then a few hours in the reading room looking at fashion from the 1800s and at a Writer’s Digest Publishing book to get tips. I got home around 5:00, feeling like I’d gotten a full days work in and surprisingly content, satisfied, and thinking about quitting my day job (jokingly, of course). And ready to move forward in the book, whereas I’d felt rather stuck the last few months editing-wise.
This morning I woke up surprisingly early for how little sleep I’ve gotten over the last week – early as in 9:30 – and in a reading/researching/writing mood again. So, I grabbed a writer’s digest and started reading it. And I ran across an article talking again about the whole “write 15 minutes a day” thing. Whereupon I immediately felt my normal guilt that I didn’t make a point to do that, and a little resentful. But there was a follow-up comment that really resonated with me. It was “You have to stay in the story.” Or something along those lines. The basic idea is, if you force yourself to work on a story for 15 minutes a day, you will continue to know what it is you were in the middle of, how the characters were feeling, what you were trying to figure out, and all that. And I was like – hmm. That is a good point. It isn’t just about the discipline. It is about staying with your story. And I do have that trouble when I go back to a story after awhile, getting back in the heads of the characters and what I was trying to do with that particular section that makes no sense.
So. I have decided to make a goal. I am going to aim to write for 15 minutes a day for a week solid. And to blog every day about how it went on my attempt-to-become-a-social-media-writer-guru-blog-that-isn’t-going-well-at-all blog Once Upon a Story, if you care to check in. Starting tomorrow. 😛
Forest Idylls 