Thanks, and Giving

“When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.” - Tecumseh


Here's the Thanks. Without getting maudlin, let's just say that the above quote has particular meaning for me this year, and I give thanks today, and every day, to my wonderful wife Penny for keeping me in the light.


And now, the Giving. I give you my writing tip of the day (which came to me, once again, from Hillary Rettig's time management and productivity seminar): timed free writes. Start with ten minutes a day, where you must keep typing or scribbling until the bell rings. Need a bell? I use the online countdown clock at http://www.online-stopwatch.com/. I'm averaging 350 words a day of... well, mostly dross, and that is not only okay, that is to be expected. We're not panning for gold here (although a few shiny flakes can already be seen in the whirls and eddies of words), we're building mind/body habits.


And while I'm giving out gifts that others have given me (I hear regifting is big in the last couple of months of the year), here's a writer's lament in the form of a limerick from Cathy Elcik:

Metered Angst

by Catherine Elcik

When tracking my writing it's hard to ignore

when my hours shrink back to less than half four.

I say that I'm fighting

To prioritize writing

But then dole out my time like I can simply make more.

You are not alone, Cathy. You are not alone.


Thanks for Reading,


Stephen.

Time Enough for Blog

It's been a week of ups and downs. The big up was yesterday, spent in Hillary Rettig's "The Time of Your Life" seminar at Grub Street. If you get the opportunity to attend one of Hillary's presentations, either at Grub Street or anywhere else, I recommend it highly. In the morning she taught us that procrastination to avoid writing is typically a response, a suboptimal response, to ingrained perfectionism (the inner oppressor that says 'you suck - why even bother with this?'), and how you can be aware of that inner voice and silence it. The afternoon was all about time management -- about how, when you become aware of where you're spending your time, you can empower yourself to spend more time on the high-value activities where you want to be investing your life, and less time to no time at all on the low-value things.

Now to put her advice into practice.

The big down, was a big Fall Down and Go Boom on Monday night, when I took a tumble onto the track bed when running full out after a Green Line train at the Newton Highlands stop.

Bad idea.

No broken bones, but bruises and contusions along my right side bad enough to keep me out of work for a day, and leaving my right arm looking like I commissioned Jackson Pollack to provide me with a tattoo sleeve depiction of Hell. It's 63 degrees in Boston right now, but I'm wearing a long-sleeved shirt in recognition of Penny's delicate sensibilities.

Better time management should alleviate the need and desire to run for trains. We can only hope.

Thanks for Reading,

Stephen

Size Matters

"Every writer I know has trouble writing." - Joseph Heller


I have a writer friend who has already produced 7,137 words this month (I'm talking about you, KL) towards their NaNoWriMo goal. Another friend is workshopping one of their novels in one writer's group, and a second, written in a completely different genre, in another group. Yet another friend has made a contract with herself to write as an (unpaid) part-time job, for fifteen hours each week, in order to finish her novel within a year.


Me, I squeeze out short stories. And we're not talking 16-20 page short stories, but rather flash fiction (under 1,000 words), or 1,500 - 2,500 word tidbits of stories. One first draft of such a miniature every three to four weeks, if I'm lucky. It's not because I write slowly. It's because I don't write that often. And this month, I'm starting to get a bit of a complex about it.


I'm a guy, after all. Size matters.


Having a heart attack brought home to me on an intellectual level how limited our time on this earth can be. To turn that understanding into a change in the habits of a master procrastinator, however, may require some professional help.


So, this coming Saturday I'll be back at Grub Street for a Time Management / Stop Procrastinating seminar, "The Time of Your Life," taught by productivity coach Hillary Rettig. I've heard good things about her seminars, and hope to be able to internalize her approach to get more writing down. I'm not talking writing a novel in a month, but even a 3,000 word story, or two or three new 1,500 word masterpieces, would be nice.


I'm also going to attempt to revive this somnolent blog, shooting for weekly updates every Sunday night. 


Short updates, of course. It's what I do.


Thanks for reading,


Stephen