The Myth of Time

Over the past few weeks I've been recovering from a bilateral inguinal hernia. As an aspiring writer I cannot count the times over the years that I've wished for unlimited time to write. If I had the time to do whatever I wanted, surely I could put out 1000-2000 words a day, write 'em in the morning, edit 'em in the afternoon and crank out the first draft of a novel in a month or two.

I was off for ten days following the surgery. The only thing I had to do besides exist and sleep in that time was to write lesson plans for the substitutes who covered my high school English courses while I was off. Essentially, I had all the time I could ever have wanted over those ten days. Grand total of new words on my current manuscript while I was down? Less than 2000 words.

There could, potentially, be any number of reasons for this. I was on a narcotic pain killer for four days. Can't write while you're loopy, right? Well, while I was on Percocet for the pain, there was absolutely no noticeable effect on either my mental faculties or my behavior. It didn't do anything that would have kept me from writing. I didn't have access to the computer because of discomfort, pain, etc. I admit that for the first few days it would have been exceptionally uncomfortable to attempt to sit at the keyboard in my office chair and type. Still, by the fourth or fifth day I was able to spend between an hour and two at the computer at a time with relatively little pain or discomfort. Surely I could have written right? Nope. Not a word. When I did finally write, it was using my laptop, which I set up in the recliner on a food tray generally pulled out a few times a year when someone in the family makes breakfast in bed for someone else. It was a setup I could have used at any point in my recovery. Last excuse I can think of...I was exceptionally immobile and didn't want to bend over to pick up anything. I could have been left alone while my wife was at work with no one to retrieve the laptop for me and since I forgot to ask for it, it sat in the corner in its case torturing me with all the work I could have been doing while I lay there. Uh, no. My wife, by her own choice, is a stay-at-home-mom, and even if she had been busy the whole time my four year old daughter could easily have brought me the laptop and the breakfast tray. No excuses, pathetic output.

One might question my devotion to writing. I do. I question it all the time. Then, when I've had a bad week and I haven't written forever, and I'm grumpy and tired, and I'm convinced that I have never and will never put two words together that are worth the effort to read, I make myself sit down and write, and it just flows. And I find that, to my own satisfaction, and I think I'm a decent judge of quality, I've written pretty well, and I finally, finally feel better, feel complete again. I get very, very grumpy if I go too long without writing. Right now, I have progress reports due in less than twelve hours and a stack of papers to grade that nearly reaches my knee from flat on the floor and I'm doing this, because i haven't written today (well, yesterday, but as I haven't slept yet today is still yesterday, all right?), and I have to get something down on paper. The story doesn't seem to have any juice at the moment so here I am.

The idea that if we had time enough we would escape our restrictions and create great art is crap. The truth is, if you don't want it enough to find time for it in your busy life, you probably don't want it bad enough to make it happen. There are always exceptions, but generally those exceptions occur for short periods of time and in the general run of things, if we want to write, to draw, to compose, to play whatever instrument it is we play etc. we find the time. In fact, given the tremendous pressure and duties of everyday life as a husband, a father, a teacher with a salary low enough to qualify my kids (although, admittedly not myself) for medicaid, a second job, a drama director, a coach, and a still mostly aspiring writer (I've had one small-time publication, and my creative thesis is out there), making time for my writing is when I do my best work. My most productive week of the school year (and only one week was better since I started tracking weekly output in late July) was  September 19-25. I was teaching full time and put in two weekend shifts at the local Carmike cinemas where I work weekends. I totaled 6653 words. Finding the discipline, the desire to carve out the time for writing, knowing the time is precious and that I don't have it in abundance, that I can't wait till later while I watch one more episode of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, or read one more magazine, or one more chapter in whichever novel is currently topping the stack, means I write more. Less time, a life that demands I be out there doing other things, that makes writing time precious, nearly invaluable because there's no illusion of being able to splurge and make it up, is essential for me to be at my most productive.

At least at this point. There was that magical 14000 word week in Telluride this summer on vacation....