|
TM
15 Minutes
by Beth Barany
The most powerful 15 minutes of your life are the ones you spend doing what you're here for, what you're meant to do. No, I'm not talking about outside the law, breaking the golden rule, that kind of stuff. Let's not go there. I'm talking about your passion, your art, your way of touching the world. Okay, let's be specific to writing since that's what I know and love, and what you're all here to read about.
Day 1: Okay, here's the deal. Set the timer for 15 minutes. You don't have a timer?! Go get one! Ready? Now set the timer for 15 minutes and look at your writing project. You don't have a writing project? Then spend 15 minutes looking at a blank page. Alright! That's it for today. Tune in tomorrow for the next step.
Day 2: It's tomorrow! Now today. Set your timer for 15 minutes. Look at your writing project and read the most recent paragraph, page or section that you wrote. Edit or rewrite it today. Only that. For those of you just starting a project--time to brainstorm. Start with a list or web of all the ideas that capture you right now. Ding! Times up!
Day 3: All writers set your timer for 15 minutes. Today write non-stop. Do not stop. Do not collect $200.
A word about the time limitation. Yes, you can continue beyond the 15 minutes. But at first, only by a few minutes per day. If you're eager to keep writing, that's a good sign. That means that you'll continue tomorrow.
The point of all this? To develop a daily writing habit. Writers write. You're developing the habit.
This habit will hold you on good days and bad, slow times, fast times, exciting times, depressed times. That's what we do. We write.
c. 2008 Beth Barany
top
|
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
-- Douglas Adams, author to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
"Writing is not a genteel profession; it's quite nasty and tough and kind of dirty."
-- Rosemary Mahoney, travel writer
"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection."
-- Anais Nin, author
QUOTE ACTION
Choose one quote and its action per day for the next few days.
Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.
-- Anna Freud
Whatever your past may have been, take one creative step toward your big dream today.
It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever -- the one who recognizes the challenge and does something about it.
-- Vincent Lombardi
Name your greatest challenge today, and spend 10 minutes addressing it.
To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted.
-- George Kneller
Today, take a second look at your assumptions about your current creative project, and wonder about it from an opposite perspective.
| 
