Day 1 & 2 – 10 Mins for 10 Days

Ready, set and go! My timer has been set and oops, there goes the bell! I mean the doorbell. This is my life. Every time I sit down to get my meditative mode on to try and write something, an idea of a story, a continuation of my existing stories, a short story maybe, life interrupts. The interruptions can take a million forms. But every interruption takes me further away from the mindset I need to write.

Since the day one of my short stories was published, instead of writing more, I have hardly written! Unless you count journalling or watsapping writing. Every day I would look at my planner and feel a stab of guilt for not being able to check off that writing box that I had sworn I would include in my daily routine.

So when my writer friend and teacher came up with her 10 minutes of writing for 10 days challenge, I thought, I should sign up. And then I went a step further. I also enrolled into her PUSH group because I have noticed that sometimes I am better at sticking to things when I hold myself accountable. And what better way to hold yourself accountable than by joining a supportive community? I had noticed how I have reaped the benefits of improving my consistency with running since I joined the local running group, so I thought maybe this will work with my writing too?

Now you’ll wonder, why have I written day 1 and day 2 here? If you head out to Tammy’s blog to see the details of the challenge, you’ll notice that the challenge starts from 22nd July to 31st July. In India, its 25th July already. But in America, its still 24th July. So technically, we are two days into the challenge and I already missed day 1 because I forgot to set a reminder!!

Luckily this wasn’t a 100 Days of Running sort of challenge where if you actually miss a day, it won’t be counted. I think you can bend the rules a bit to help yourself. The important bit is sitting down to write. Something, anything. So I decided, I will write 20 minutes today, instead of 10 minutes, and that should in a way account for 2 days of writing for 10 minutes? Potaytoes-Potahtos??

I don’t know what form my writing will take, but maybe these can be my daily pages or be written in addition to my daily pages. Whatever be the case, I’m glad I have started this challenge.

I finished the sentence in the paragraph above and looked at my timer. 7 minutes remaining. I had thought that I had already written for 20 minutes.

Finding time or creating time for the things that matter or the things that you love feels like trying to build up a failing business. You try to cut corners, let go of some activities that merely consume resources – time and give nothing in return, make some people unhappy because you chose to write or run or read instead of going out for a drink with them or face timing them. But if all this leads to getting your passion up and running again, it will all be worth it, wouldn’t it? Everyone will understand. Maybe you will be able to make time for everyone eventually. Maybe you will add some more things into your business of writing?

In the three minutes that remain, and if you’ve for some reason decided to read the entirety of this post, let’s end it with a question. No, its not about time or business or even writing.

Its about music. What is a song you heard very recently, that stayed with you or appealed to you because of its lyrics and not its music or the artist. This is what I will be writing about tomorrow. I’ll tell you about the song I chose in my entry tomorrow. I can be one song or more than one. Whatever suits your fancy and whatever I can fit in 10 minutes. Wink!