I will NOT write on the toilet ...
As a writer with two daughters (one just a toddler), a husband, my other jobs, and countless other things that seem to suck my days away in vacuum time, I live the MAJOR TIME CRUNCH. So, I like to read about what other writers do to fit quality writing in their days.
While browsing through articles telling me about how much of our time is wasted ... um ... browsing through articles on the internet ... I found one (after reading through a thousand, since I have so much time to do so) with one of those nifty pie charts about average time each person spends each day doing each thing. I felt vindicated, like somebody had charted my life (glossing over my social media time suck moments).
So, after processing the pie chart to understand where all my time goes, I continued reading, kind of excited about the possibility that this article would give me the ROAD to time management. And this article (note, no link to it because, well, I lost it in the thousands), suggested I WRITE IN THE BATHROOM.
Huh?
And it had people talking about their success about WRITING IN THE BATHROOM. It also had people saying they would get up a half an hour earlier, cutting into their 5 hour sleep night to WRITE IN THE BATHROOM.
Okay. They didn't get up early to write in the bathroom, but where's the first place you go after getting up? THE BATHROOM. And now, what are you going to do in the bathroom? WRITE.
I was dejected!
Horrified.
I felt lazy, totally uncommitted to the task at hand, like my career didn't matter. I was literally flushing minutes away -- quality writing minutes. How many hours, days, weeks have I wasted in the bathroom, minutes that could have been productive ... Um. Twice.
Another woman bragged that she, instead of getting up at 5:30 in the morning for her 45 minute run, which had been a ritual for fifteen years, she got up at 5:00 and cut her run short 15 minutes.
Wow.
Another wrote in her car. At traffic lights. Or during traffic jams. (She didn't mention whether she seemed to be the cause of said jams ...) anyway ... I guess she has good insurance.
I started feeling like I wasn't making writing a priority because those who do make writing a priority WRITE IN THE BATHROOM.
After reading the article, digesting the words (glaze-eyed after reading through so many, spending countless minutes, even up to an hour reading about how not to waste time on time management ...), I got pissed. And, NO, I didn't go and WRITE IN THE BATHROOM about it.
Honestly, has it gotten that ridiculous? Like carving a time out for writing or anything has to be done on a toilet? Haven't these people heard of DOWN TIME? Of course not. Because they're also writing at stop lights.
And it hit me what bothers me so much. Nobody's just where they are anymore. Nobody's just out to dinner anymore. We're at dinner with in-laws while simultaneously conference calling with associates in Detroit and Papua New Guinea while texting with a friend who's at an Eagle's reunion tour and Henley's singing Learn to Be Still simultaneously browsing through the photos said friend posted on Facebook while backstage. This is all while telling the waiter we don't want the Caesar Salad unless the anchovies are eco-harvested and no dolphins have been harmed while fishing for them ... in French because we're at a Hatian restaurant and we have a translation app. All the while enthralled with our father-in-law's anecdote about the TV he had that had a dial and no remote control that turned fuzzy after 11:00 at night.
Nobody is NOW.
I met an American traveling in Colombia the other day, and we laughed about how easy it is to talk in present tense. I said jokingly, "Language learners are Zen. They're not yesterday or tomorrow, what could be, should be ... They ARE.
We giggled. But it got me thinking about the way we've managed to work our lives into frazzled nonsense. Just nonsense, really. And the magic of every day life is lost to white noise and apps.
My pace has changed since the girls came. It takes me a half an hour to walk a block because we have to stop and look at every single ant. An errand that once took twenty minutes, now can stretch into an entire afternoon. My girls don't know what yesterday means or tomorrow. They just ARE.
So. I've learned that I DO have time for everything that matters. Writing matters.
I find a way to work it into a schedule. But trust me. I WILL NOT, NOT NOW, NOT EVER NEVER, EVER WRITE ON THE TOILET. Criminy, it's the only time of day I actually get to SIT. Justifiable sittage. And MY time.
Sheesh.
Here are some books I LOVE on writing and the craft and how to feel like a human being while, like Hemingway said, "bleeding on the page." (Yeah. Yeah. So King DID write in the bathroom. Or a closet. But i don't think it's the SAME THING. It was a makeshift office.)
http://writerunboxed.com/don/
While browsing through articles telling me about how much of our time is wasted ... um ... browsing through articles on the internet ... I found one (after reading through a thousand, since I have so much time to do so) with one of those nifty pie charts about average time each person spends each day doing each thing. I felt vindicated, like somebody had charted my life (glossing over my social media time suck moments).
So, after processing the pie chart to understand where all my time goes, I continued reading, kind of excited about the possibility that this article would give me the ROAD to time management. And this article (note, no link to it because, well, I lost it in the thousands), suggested I WRITE IN THE BATHROOM.
Huh?
And it had people talking about their success about WRITING IN THE BATHROOM. It also had people saying they would get up a half an hour earlier, cutting into their 5 hour sleep night to WRITE IN THE BATHROOM.
Okay. They didn't get up early to write in the bathroom, but where's the first place you go after getting up? THE BATHROOM. And now, what are you going to do in the bathroom? WRITE.
I was dejected!
Horrified.
I felt lazy, totally uncommitted to the task at hand, like my career didn't matter. I was literally flushing minutes away -- quality writing minutes. How many hours, days, weeks have I wasted in the bathroom, minutes that could have been productive ... Um. Twice.
Another woman bragged that she, instead of getting up at 5:30 in the morning for her 45 minute run, which had been a ritual for fifteen years, she got up at 5:00 and cut her run short 15 minutes.
Wow.
Another wrote in her car. At traffic lights. Or during traffic jams. (She didn't mention whether she seemed to be the cause of said jams ...) anyway ... I guess she has good insurance.
I started feeling like I wasn't making writing a priority because those who do make writing a priority WRITE IN THE BATHROOM.
After reading the article, digesting the words (glaze-eyed after reading through so many, spending countless minutes, even up to an hour reading about how not to waste time on time management ...), I got pissed. And, NO, I didn't go and WRITE IN THE BATHROOM about it.
Honestly, has it gotten that ridiculous? Like carving a time out for writing or anything has to be done on a toilet? Haven't these people heard of DOWN TIME? Of course not. Because they're also writing at stop lights.
And it hit me what bothers me so much. Nobody's just where they are anymore. Nobody's just out to dinner anymore. We're at dinner with in-laws while simultaneously conference calling with associates in Detroit and Papua New Guinea while texting with a friend who's at an Eagle's reunion tour and Henley's singing Learn to Be Still simultaneously browsing through the photos said friend posted on Facebook while backstage. This is all while telling the waiter we don't want the Caesar Salad unless the anchovies are eco-harvested and no dolphins have been harmed while fishing for them ... in French because we're at a Hatian restaurant and we have a translation app. All the while enthralled with our father-in-law's anecdote about the TV he had that had a dial and no remote control that turned fuzzy after 11:00 at night.
Nobody is NOW.
I met an American traveling in Colombia the other day, and we laughed about how easy it is to talk in present tense. I said jokingly, "Language learners are Zen. They're not yesterday or tomorrow, what could be, should be ... They ARE.
We giggled. But it got me thinking about the way we've managed to work our lives into frazzled nonsense. Just nonsense, really. And the magic of every day life is lost to white noise and apps.
My pace has changed since the girls came. It takes me a half an hour to walk a block because we have to stop and look at every single ant. An errand that once took twenty minutes, now can stretch into an entire afternoon. My girls don't know what yesterday means or tomorrow. They just ARE.
So. I've learned that I DO have time for everything that matters. Writing matters.
I find a way to work it into a schedule. But trust me. I WILL NOT, NOT NOW, NOT EVER NEVER, EVER WRITE ON THE TOILET. Criminy, it's the only time of day I actually get to SIT. Justifiable sittage. And MY time.
Sheesh.
Here are some books I LOVE on writing and the craft and how to feel like a human being while, like Hemingway said, "bleeding on the page." (Yeah. Yeah. So King DID write in the bathroom. Or a closet. But i don't think it's the SAME THING. It was a makeshift office.)
http://writerunboxed.com/don/
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