Time is of the Essence

I have written extensively on the time it takes to be a writer.  But it’s not just time, it’s discipline.  Someone ought to invent “writers’ glue” that sticks writers’ butts in their chairs for a minimum amount of time each day.  Oh yeah, and while they’re at it, the special glue should automatically disconnect the phones and the internet for a few hours.  Any inventors out there?

In the past year I have done an extensive amount of teaching and a lot less writing than in the prior five years.  In fact, beyond my twice-weekly blogs, I barely wrote at all.  But now, with enrollment down in the international schools in Tokyo, including Temple University, I find myself unemployed and with unlimited time to write.  Okay, I have parental responsibilities and a husband who needs my time, too, so the time isn’t unlimited, but it sure does stretch out.  Just like one’s “stuff” expands to fill the available space in a house, so a task seems to expand to fill the available time.

In the past three weeks since being back in Tokyo from my summer holiday, I have spent a lot of time simply staring at a blank computer screen. It takes a lot of time and just plain gumption to put words on a page and make them into a story or a nonfiction piece.  At the moment, I am building my gumption.  It will come.  I promise it will come.  It will just be a slow process to get back in the saddle.  But I’m working on it – I promise!