WARNING: This is a no-edit zone...
“How do you get so much done?”
There’s a question some have asked others, and often.
I
wish I could write that there’s a supernatural means responsible, or a
set method that makes accomplishing much in little time. But the truth
is it requires discipline.
Years
ago, a friend and I were both aspiring writers. While she went on
shopping trips and out to lunch with the girls and spent hours and/or
days doing fun things, I abstained to write, and on more than one
occasion, I was told I was obsessed.
I
didn’t see it that way. I had a lot to learn and if I wanted to write
well, then I had to apply myself to learning and to actually writing.
A mentor once told me that I didn’t have the right to call myself an
author until I’d written a million words. I saw merit in that, though
at the time, the declaration admittedly stung. The merit was that any
professional requires training. After all, a brain surgeon doesn’t
wake up one morning, decide to be a brain surgeon, then declare
himself/herself one. Education and training are required.
So
I invested in writing and in intensive independent study and then in
the formal education to earn the privilege. And I wrote. And wrote.
And then wrote more and continue to invest and to write.
Temptation
in this, like in everything else where the intent is to use what you do
for good purpose, abounds. It’s a gorgeous day, and you’re stuck,
backside to chair before the computer, writing.
You’d
love to engage in a hobby. Those have a way of falling away when you
write. It consumes. You’d like to go on that cruise you’ve been
thinking about, or take that trip, or take that pottery class for the
love of it.
And
yet you know if you do those things then you won’t make the progress
you’ve hoped to make. You know that you will fall short of your
intended goals.
After twenty years, I can say that... READ MORE