The 8.8 earthquake that shook Chile last Saturday shortened the length of the day! It's only 1.26 millionths of a second but still! We have less time! As an editor/student/writer/teacher, I'm always concerned about time. There seems to be so little of it in a given day, and no matter what, I'm always jamming too much into my day, trying to get everything done and not being able to. Maybe in that 1.26 millionth of a second we just lost, I would have finally found time to properly clean my apartment or go to the grocery store or finish that story I've been working on. Alas, I know that is not so and I would probably just waste that 1.26 millionth of a second surfing the internet or dawdling on the my to campus.But it reminds of the terrific writing advice I received from Don Belton: every month he made a list of things that he felt he procrastinated with, and he would try to cut them out. I like that this is a monthly activity instead of an all encompassing big New-Year's-this-year's-gonna-be-the-year type resolution. I like the smallness of taking stock each month and finding the few moments when you can spend time writing. Those small moments can really add up to something big.
-Nina
I really like this idea. Since I'm not taking a fiction class this semester, it's harder than ever to find the time to actually work on stories since, well, there are so many other important things to be doing, like watching hilarious youtube videos, or checking facebook updates by people I don't know. Have you tried cutting these things out completely, or just slightly? I've been a stalker so long, it'd be really hard to stop cold-turkey.
ReplyDelete