Order. Routine. Discipline. So much of my life is organized, task oriented. There’s a sticky-note checklist for everything and a fine point Sharpie to mark my success.
As a middle school teacher, I face a minimum of 43 papers to grade each day. Sometimes it’s 86 or even 129. I attack the stack daily - before school, at lunch, during 5 minute breaks, after dinner…and on and on it goes. The stack shrinks and grows, shrinks and grows. Sometimes I win altogether as the stack disappears by the persistence of my discipline. I win, and for a few hours I bask in a sense of accomplishment.
The first morning of Spring Break, I sat down on my couch to relax. Three deep breaths later I was up and on the move. Doors, windows and cabinets had cried out to me for a little love and care. I responded with clean white paint and a lot of time. I worked through meals. I skipped the naps I had planned to take. With discipline, I pulled out my brush each day to make progress and finally, finally see the results of my labors. I worked relentlessly to win over the chipped, peeling and mismatched paint. I worked, motivated by immediate results.
For someone who lives a life driven by order, routine and discipline, I find it incredibly hard to write regularly. My discipline in other areas of life is driven by physical, visual results. The stack is smaller. The door is a crisp, clean white. But how many times have I made myself a writing “To Do” list only to check things off and find that I am no closer to my greater goal? I write myself into corners. I write, rewrite and delete. If only the path were more clear. I wouldn’t even mind 100 steps as long as I knew they were “the right” productive steps to take. Without immediate results, my checklist loses the power to motivate.
Writing requires that I expand my expectations and change my need for an immediate, measurable outcome. There will be a finished product someday; a check on the big list of personal goals. My method may not be the shortest, most direct route to the goal, but I will keep trying. I will learn to find satisfaction in the journey. And for the sake of immediate success, my checklist might just read “Write Something Today.”
I feel your pain! Life is one big process, isn’t it? I bet your newly painted doors look great, though.
Your life sounds like mine right now. I feel like my pile of reading keeps growing. It never shrinks.
) I’ll be the first one to shout out for you when you do make a to do list for your writing, Jen.
After reading this post and seeing something of myself in your words, I can tell you with certainty that today you DID write something, and it mattered. Thanks, Jen.
I completely understand, Jen. You are such a whirlwind of efficiency, and yet there’s this “other” list….It’s so much less concrete to write. Thanks for affirming what I feel too!
You apparently have a gift I lack, which is the ability to SEE your immediate physical environment and CARE what it looks like. So, kudos for that!
I still know what you mean about the murky progress. Here’s a thought — some writers measure words or pages, but others measure time. I wonder if making a visual of time put in would make you happy? … Once, for revision, I stuck a progress meter widget from Writertopia on my blog (http://storybookgirl.blogspot.com/2009/09/envision-revision.html), and I really liked having the visual representation of what I was doing.
Gosh, this is so true, Jen. It is so easy for writing to get kicked to the back of the list in favor of more concrete and practical tasks. I think the goal of “write something today” is a perfect. I have no doubt that you will reach all your writing goals eventually, but cheers to the journey.