At Whatever, science fiction author John Scalzi has some good things to say about finding the time to write.
As I read it, I thought that it really applies to anything people say they "want" to do.
So: Do you want to write or don’t you? If your answer is “yes, but,” then here’s a small editing tip: what you’re doing is using six letters and two words to say “no.” And that’s fine. Just don’t kid yourself as to what “yes, but” means.
If your answer is “yes,” then the question is simply when and how you find the time to do it. If you spend your free time after work watching TV, turn off the TV and write. If you prefer to spend time with your family when you get home, write a bit after the kids are in bed and before you turn in yourself. If your work makes you too tired to think straight when you get home, wake up early and write a little in the morning before you head off. If you can’t do that (I’m not a morning person myself) then you have your weekend — weekends being what I used when I wrote Agent to the Stars.
And if you can’t manage that, then what you’re saying is that you were lying when you said your answer is “yes.” Because if you really wanted to write, you would find a way to make the time, and you would find a way to actually write. Cory Doctorow says that no matter what, he tries for 250 words a day (that’s a third of what I’ve written in this entry to this point), and if you write just 250 words a day — the equivalent to a single, double-spaced page of text — then in a year you have 90,000 words. That’s the length of a novel. Off of 250 words a day. Which you could do. On the goddamned bus. If you really wanted.
This is why at this point in time I have really very little patience for people who say they want to write but then come up with all sorts of excuses as to why they don’t have the time.
I particularly liked the line: "If your answer is “yes, but,” then here’s a small editing tip: what you’re doing is using six letters and two words to say “no.”" Rings true, no?
I hear it about homeschooling from time to time. I occasionally hear "I would like to homeschool, but there's no way I could do it, I don't have the patience, etc." This is a good example, because believe me, every one of those obstacles has been overcome by many, many people who really wanted to homeschool their kids. Or, lacking a desire, who really believed it was what they ought to do. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to homeschool your kids, by the way. And it's not what everyone ought to do. But again, honesty about it.
And I hear it about regular exercise — much more commonly than about homeschooling. "I want to exercise, but I don't have the time." Same thing. Whatever your obstacles, whatever your set of obstacles, other people have had them, and some of those people — the ones who really wanted to — have gotten through and over and around them.
The doing is the measure of the wanting. "Doing" might involve planning and preparing, but it implies action of some kind. Without action, so-called wanting is only vapor and wind. Not wanting at all.
Which makes me think that a good resolution to make might be to stop saying "I really want to do X" when the evidence demonstrates that I don't. And that means facing up to some truths about who I am, because don't we all measure ourselves in part by what we imagine ourselves doing, rather than by what we really do? And couldn't that truth set us free?
Like this:
- I don't want to read stories to my children every day.
- I don't want to go to Mass except on Sundays.
- I don't want to turn off the computer every night as soon as my husband gets home.
- I don't want to take public transit instead of my car.
- I don't want to grow kitchen herbs in containers.
- I don't want to stop feeding the kids convenient and cheap packaged cookies for tea snacks.
What don't you really want to do?
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