I only have 10 minutes

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squirrel-567858_1920 (2)I only have 10 minutes to write today so please excuse my unedited rambling. Sometimes this happens when you write for 10 minutes every day – you just write – without editing, correcting, changing. You write quickly, off the top of your head, in the now.  I’m currently reading Eckhart Tolle’s book, The Power of Now  (I know, I know, everybody’s read it already). He explains why and how to live in the now. So today I’m writing in the now – not about the past or the future, just what’s going on in my head at this moment – which is dinner – whole wheat spaghetti with meat sauce and zucchini. We’re having an early dinner and then going to our writer’s group.

Sometimes when you write for 10 minutes every day, it’s not what you write that matters, it’s that you write at all.

10 minutes of “I love it when…”

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love-957023_1920 (2)Today is Sunday. For me, a day of rest and retrospect. A day to re-fuel my inner strength to face the week ahead. It’s a popular thing to write a gratitude list every day as a way to center your spirit. But my gratitude list has become repetitive. Every second of every day, I’m grateful for my family, my husband, my friends, my health, home, brains, beauty, freedom. That list is carved in stone and I can refer to it every day. So now I write, “I love it when….”

  • I love it when my cat, Rebel, sleeps next to me.
  • I love it when the sky is so blue that it sears my eyeballs.
  • I love it when gas is only $2.01 per gallon.
  • I love it when I see my friends on Facebook.
  • I love it when my mom, sister, and friend Alicia spend time together.
  • I love it when my husband, CJ, makes sarcastic remarks that make me laugh.
  • I love it when CJ and I watch TV and eat ice cream together in bed.
  • I love it when I spend time preparing my calendar and work for the coming week.

I love it when I write for 10 minutes every day!

This is personal

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beagle-995637_1920 (2)My heart aches today. My nephew Adam was murdered 18 months ago. Shot in the head while sitting on the couch in his family room. Luckily, his parents had just left the house, his two children were sleeping, and his wife was at the store or they might have been murdered too. The trial ended yesterday. The murderer, a man who was married to one of our nieces, was found guilty by the jury of second-degree murder, child endangerment, and running from law-enforcement. The family is disappointed – shocked – that he wasn’t convicted of first degree murder, but at least we know he will be locked up for a long time – hopefully for the rest of his life.

I intended this blog to be about writing. But some days, like today, writing for joy just isn’t forthcoming.

My 10 minutes are up…..

What can you write in 10 minutes every day?

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UTSometimes it can be a challenge to write for 10 minutes every day. What do you write about?

If you’re writing a book, you obviously have a clear assignment everyday. An average page has 250-300 words. Can you write one page in 10 minutes? In the article, Word Count for Novels and Children’s Books, Writer’s Digest editor Chuck Sambuchino advises that 80,000 to 89,999 is an acceptable word count for a novel (if you are not J.K. Rowling.)  I did the math – if you write 250 words every day, you will write 80,000 words – a novel – in just 320 days!

A member of our writers group, Ellen Gillette, wrote a poem every day for 1,000 days. You can read her body of work at http://www.ellenpoems.blogspot.com/. I love reading something – like Ellen’s poetry – that brings on feelings.

Me – not writing a novel, poetry, short story or thesis. Just writing ’cause I like to.

Becky’s rant

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Rant goat

“Yeah – that bothers me.”

Becky woke up with that thought. The bothersome thought woke her an hour early and nagged her until she got up and wrote about it.

Here’s Becky’s Write for 10 Minutes rant:

America is sending and spending billions of dollars on a situation that has gone on since right after WWI. In the last year, $160 billion to Afghanistan and $120 billion to Iraq. We keep sticking our noses into other people’s business. It’s costing us our sons daughters fathers mothers. When there are things we could do so much more for our own people here in the US. Especially the military veterans. This is gratitude to those who have sacrificed their minds body and souls. It is not right for us to give money to people outside our country when we have so many who should not have to wait even 5 minutes for a doctor or hospital to take care of them because of the service they did for US. The collective people of our nation need to rethink what we are here for. 

We both have sons in the US military so I understand and share her frustration.

BUT – when Becky announced that she was writing a rant, I expected it to be about something else – like how her boyfriend forgot to tell her that he changed the locks on the doors to their house, or about our sister Beth (Becky’s twin) who went back to live with her abusive husband, or about the issues she’s having with Windows 10 on her laptop.

I’ve known Becky her entire life (she’s 12 years younger than me) but I’m constantly surprised, delighted, inspired  by all the things I don’t know about her! Love you, Becky!

What about you – pen or keyboard?

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snowy owlDo you prefer to write by hand with pen on paper or on a keyboard? Does it affect your creativity? We had this discussion at our last Use Your Words writers group meeting. We were talking about writing every day – some like to write in a journaI while others prefer the keyboard.

I write both ways (sounds kinda sexy!). For work, I hand write copious notes and lists in my work notebook and then write copy for newsletters, brochures, social media, etc., on the computer keyboard. I like writing for work on the keyboard because I type lightening fast and can edit/correct/change as I write.

But, because I have a tendency to edit/correct/change while writing on the keyboard, I prefer to write my personal stuff by hand. I write by hand in my Travel Journal.  And, every morning, my sister Becky and I write for 10 minutes in our journals and then read out loud what we wrote. Unedited handwriting is raw, not so pretty, truthful.

I found an interesting article on the I-net about the benefits of writing by hand http://mentalfloss.com/article/33508/4-benefits-writing-hand. In the short time I spent searching, I saw lots of information about the benefits of writing by hand but none on the benefits of typing. We’ll just have to make up our own.

Last year, our writers group read “Writing Down Your Soul,” by Janet Conner. One entire chapter is about choosing your writing tools. I had never thought about the physical connections between our hearts, minds and hands when writing.

What about you – pen or keyboard?

10 reasons why I write for 10 minutes every day

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  1. I’m a writer and writers write.
  2. Writing every day is good mental exercise.
  3. My sister Becky and I write for 10 minutes together and then we read out loud what we wrote.
  4. Writing frees my mind of some of the many thoughts clanking around in there.
  5. Lawrence Block, author of Write for Your Life, suggested writing for 10 minutes every day
  6. Blogger and author of Choose Yourself, James Altucher, challenges his reader to write 10 ideas every day. Sounds easy but it’s not.
  7. Sometimes it’s more effective to express/confess/reveal things in writing than speaking.
  8. Writing is a GOOD habit.
  9. I like to make lists so 10 minutes of pure list making is very satisfying.
  10. I’m a writer and writers write every day – even if it’s just for 10 minutes.