So, today, I wrote my three morning pages as usual. And as has become my norm lately, they dragged on and on as I kept half an eye on the internet and half an eye on a conversation with a friend and half an eye on my two baby girls, which left only half an eye for the pages. And near the end, I realized that what my cousin had been saying to me for the past few months was true. I am a writer. I draw pictures with words. It’s what I do. The writing isn’t what I am doing while I wait for my real calling to show up, the writing is the calling.
So, with that in mind, I made up my mind to sit down and just write for 2 hours. Not write to a handed-to-me topic, not try to fit a link in to make a quick 5 bucks, but just write. And I turned out ELEVEN pages in about an hour and 40 minutes. Eleven pages people. About four of those pages were notes on the writing process itself, but the rest was essay material, and better than the average hydroxycut reviews out there. Wow. What could I accomplish if I set aside two hours everyday just to write? No internet, no telephone, just me and the writing? And coffee of course. I am not sure, but I do plan to find out.
Here’s the rub. In order to share all that with anyone, I have to put it in print. I can’t turn in a handwritten manuscript. The blog does not accept paper and ink posts. So eventually I need to have enough self discipline to sit at this keyboard and use it ONLY for writing. For now, I will stick with developing the self discipline to just shut the cover. It’s a beginning, right? And if I can do it for the remaining days of October, I ought to be good and primed when NaNoWriMo starts on November 1st.
Hi! I stumbled on your website and appreciate what you said about shutting everything off and just focusing on your writing. I’m guilty of the same thing and have three kids to keep an eye on while I’m writing and catching up on old TV shows on Netflix.
If you feel like splurging you can get a Fusion Pen by LiveScribe which digitizes everything you write and uploads to your computer. I played with one for a while before giving it to my son for college, and one of these would save you a lot of time and trouble. I found one on Ebay for $120.
Finally.
Finally what?